SHEILA ROBERTS is married and has three children. She lives on a lake in the Pacific Northwest. When she's not hanging out with her girlfriends or hitting the dance floor with her husband, she can be found writing about those things dear to women's hearts: family, friends and chocolate.

You can visit Sheila at her website, www.sheilasplace.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Better than Chocolate
Sheila Roberts

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Hi, one and all!

Welcome to Icicle Falls, my ideal town. This place has it all: breathtaking scenery, quaint shops, people who understand the importance of pulling together when the going gets tough, laughter, romance and, best of all, a chocolate factory. (Does it get any more ideal than that?)

I hope you'll enjoy your time with the Sterling women and their friends. These are my kind of women—women who dare to dream and then work hard to make those dreams come true—because where would we be without dreams? And where would we be without our mothers, sisters and girlfriends, those special people who understand us and love us in spite of our flaws? I don't know and I don't want to know.

I dare you to get all the way through this book without eating so much as a bite of chocolate. I couldn't! I hope you'll find me on Facebook and Twitter, and stop by my website, www.sheilasplace.com.

Happy reading!

Sheila

For Lilly-Anne, Pat and the gang at

A Book for All Seasons in Leavenworth, Washington

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sometimes when we think of an author writing a novel we envision the poor thing hunched over a keyboard for hours on end, staring at a computer screen, all by herself, consuming vast quantities of chocolate, growing fat on her hips. Oh, my gosh, that's me!

Except writing isn't always a solitary pursuit. After all, a girl has to do research. And this is the part of the book where I get to thank the people who helped me with that research. I owe a big thank you to my long-suffering husband for sharing his banking expertise and doing copious research to help me try and get my business details correct. Also, a huge thank you to Laura at Bainbridge Island City Hall for explaining all the work that goes into putting on a community event. When it comes to community events, Bainbridge knows how to do it. Big thanks to Brett at Theo Chocolate in Seattle for being so willing to answer all my questions about what goes into running a chocolate company. They do it right over there. Thanks to my Facebook friends and fans who sent me recipes—wish there was room in this book for every one of them. To the brain trust—Susan Wiggs, Anjali Banerjee, Kate Breslin and Elsa Watson—you girls rock. And finally, huge thanks to the gang at the Chamber of Commerce in Leavenworth, Washington, for making their resources available to me—the history of how your town built itself into a charming alpine village and successful tourist destination is truly inspiring. Icicle Falls is the closest I can come to a tribute.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Epilogue: Dreams Coming True

Extract

Recipes from the Sterlings

The Chocolate Rose White Chocolate Truffle

Bailey’s Chocolate Truffle Trifle

Icicle Falls Moose Munch

White Lavender Fudge

Bear Droppings

Chapter One

Manage your relationships well and your business will go well. Because what, after all, is business but a relationship with some dollar signs attached?

—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love

Samantha Sterling sat next to her mother in the first pew of Icicle Falls Community Church and fought back the urge to jump up, run to the front of the sanctuary, grab her stepfather, Waldo, by the neck and throttle him. She didn’t, for two reasons. One, a girl didn’t do things like that in church. Still, she could have overcome her reservations if not for the second reason—God had already taken Waldo out. Waldo was as dead as roadkill on Highway 2. In addition to a daughter from his first marriage, he’d left behind his grieving wife, Muriel, his three stepdaughters, Samantha, Cecily and Bailey, and the family business, which was nearly as dead as Waldo.

Sweet Dreams Chocolates had been healthy when Samantha’s father was alive. The company had been started by her great-grandmother Rose and had slowly but steadily grown under his leadership—one big, happy family to mirror the happy family who were living off its profits. All three sisters had spent their summers working at Sweet Dreams. All three had it drummed into them from an early age that this business was the source of both the family’s income and honor (not to mention chocolate). But it was Samantha who had fallen in love with it. Of the three girls, she was the one who’d stayed and she was the heir apparent.

But then her father had died and everything came to a halt. Samantha lost the man she and her sisters idolized, and her mother lost her way. Muriel left it to Samantha and the bookkeeper, Lizzy, to keep the company running on autopilot while first she mourned and then later searched for a new husband.

Enter Waldo Wittman, a tall, gray-haired widower recently retired, encouraged to do so by his company, which was downsizing. (Now, looking back, Samantha suspected there were other reasons Waldo had been turned loose.) He’d wanted to get away from the rat race, or so he’d said. With its mountain views, its proximity to eastern Washington wine country, its small-town friendliness and its attractive widow, Waldo decided Icicle Falls would fit the bill. And Muriel decided the same about Waldo. So, after a year and a half of widowhood, she got a new man.

And now there he was, at the front of the church, stretched out in his favorite—expensive!—gray suit. Sweet, beloved Waldo…the money-eater. Oh, Waldo, how could everything have gone so wrong so fast?

It was early January, the beginning of a new year. And what a nightmare year it was promising to be, all because Mom had made her new husband president of their family-owned business. She’d left Samantha as VP in charge of marketing; much good that had done. Now Samantha was VP in charge of disaster and she could hardly sit still thinking of the mess waiting for her back at the office.

“You’re fidgeting,” whispered her sister Cecily, who was sitting next to her.

Fidgeting at a funeral probably wasn’t polite but it was an improvement over standing up, pulling out her hair and shrieking like a madwoman.

Why, oh, why hadn’t Mom and Dad done what needed to be done to make sure that if something happened to Dad the business passed into competent hands? Then Mom could have skipped happily off into newlywed bliss, no harm no foul.

None of them had expected her to remain alone forever. She was only in her fifties when Dad died and she didn’t function well alone.

When Waldo arrived on the scene she came back to life, and Samantha had been happy for her. He was fun and charming, and she and her sisters gave him a hearty thumbs-up. Why not? He’d brought back Mom’s smile. At first everyone got along well. Like Samantha, he’d been a shutterbug and they’d enjoyed talking photography. Her favorite joke when she’d stop by the house to talk business with Mom (or try, anyway) was to ask, “Where’s Waldo?”

But once Mom dropped him on the company like a bomb, Samantha didn’t have to ask. She knew where Waldo was. He was at the office, in over his head and making her crazy.

She ground her teeth as she mentally tallied how much money he’d squandered: new business cards with his name on them, new stationery, new equipment they hadn’t needed, a fancy phone system they couldn’t afford that a slick-tongued sales rep had talked him into buying. How could a businessman be so bad at business? Of course he’d convinced both himself and Mom that every purchase was necessary, and Samantha hadn’t had the veto power to stop him.

That had been just the beginning. Six months ago their profits sank and they started having trouble paying their suppliers. Waldo cut back on production, which then affected their ability to fill orders, and Lizzy, their bookkeeper, began looking as if she’d been invited to dinner with the grim reaper. “We’re behind on our IRS quarterlies,” she’d informed Samantha. “And that’s not all.” She showed Samantha expenditures on the company credit card that made no sense. A gun. Ammunition. Cases and cases of bottled water, enough to keep the whole town hydrated. Waldo was a financial locust, devouring the company.

Where’s Waldo? Busy dumping their lives in the toilet. Flush, flush, flush! She could have happily stuffed his head in a toilet and—

“And I believe that if Waldo could speak to us now he’d say, ‘Thank God for a life well-lived,’” Pastor Jim said.

Her mother let out a sob and Samantha felt a pang of guilt. She should be crying, too. She’d liked Waldo. He’d been a man with a big heart and a big appetite for life.

“We know he’ll be missed,” Pastor Jim was saying, and Cecily laid a comforting hand on Mom’s arm. That, of course, gave Mom permission to start crying in earnest.

“Poor Mom,” whispered Bailey, who was sitting on the other side of Samantha. “First Dad and now Waldo.”

Losing two husbands—talk about a double whammy. Mom had not only loved both her husbands, she’d loved being married. She had no head for business (which probably explained why Grandpa had been perfectly happy to let Dad run Sweet Dreams), but she had a gift for relationships. She’d even had a couple of relationship books published with a small publisher and before Waldo died she’d been about to start on a new book, Secrets of a Happy Remarriage.

Samantha hoped that now Mom would turn her attention to learning how to have a happy life—with no marriage. At least, no marriage until they could get the business off the critical-care list and Samantha was put officially in charge.

The sooner, the better. Her first order of business would be to rehire Lizzy, who Waldo had fired in a misbegotten attempt to economize. She only hoped Lizzy would come back and help her sort through this mess.

She heaved a sigh. Here her mother was grieving and all she could think about was saving the family business. What was wrong with her? Did she have a calculator for a heart?

“Now I’d like to give the rest of you a chance to say something about Waldo,” Pastor Jim said.

He made me nuts probably wouldn’t cut it. Samantha stayed seated.

Lots of other people were happy to oblige, though.

“He was the most generous man I ever met,” said Maria Gomez, his regular waitress at Zelda’s. “He gave me two hundred dollars to get my car fixed. Just like that. Said not to worry about paying him back.”

Samantha pressed her lips firmly together and envisioned hundred-dollar bills with wings flying away, circling ever upward and off toward Sleeping Lady Mountain.

You do have a calculator for a heart. People were talking about how nice Waldo had been, and all she could think about was money. She was a terrible person, a terrible, terrible person. She hadn’t always been like that, had she? A tear slipped from a corner of her eye.

Ed York, owner of D’Vine Wines, stood. “I can still remember sitting with Waldo out on his deck, looking at the mountains, sharing a bottle of wine, and him saying, ‘You know, Ed, it doesn’t get any better than this.’ That Waldo, he sure knew how to enjoy life.”

While everyone around him was pulling out their hair.

“He was a dear soul,” old Mrs. Nilsen said. “Last month he stopped in the freezing cold to change my tire when I had a flat on Highway 2.”

On and on went the praise. Good, old, wonderful Waldo. Everyone here would miss him—except his rotten, ungrateful, Scrooge-in-drag, calculator-for-a-heart stepdaughter. She was pathetic. Another tear sneaked out of her eye and trickled down her cheek.

Pastor Jim finally called a halt to the festivities and the party made its way under cloudy skies to Festival Hall, where everyone could mingle, sing Waldo’s praises further and devour cold cuts and potato salad. Inside, the three sisters smiled and commiserated.

Waldo’s brother and his daughter, Wanda, had flown in from the East Coast. Taking in the woman’s red eyes as she approached, Samantha managed to find empathy in the swirl of guilt and resentment and frustration she was experiencing

“I’m sorry we’re having to see each other again in such sad circumstances,” Wanda said.

“So are we,” Cecily told her.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Samantha added. And she was. She knew how horrible it was to lose a father and she wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.

Wanda dabbed at her eyes with a soggy tissue. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He was the best father. And he was always so positive, so upbeat.”

So clueless. “I wish we could turn back the clock,” Samantha said.

Wanda sniffed and nodded. “You were all so good to him.”

Samantha couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She hardly wanted to confess that during the past few months she’d been anything but good.

Cecily stepped into the gap. “He was a nice man.”

True. He was just a bad businessman.

“He sure loved Muriel,” Wanda said. “He was so lonely after Mother died. Muriel gave him a new lease on life.”

“And I don’t know what her life would’ve been like without him,” Samantha said.

“I think Muriel would like to hear that, Wanda,” murmured Waldo’s brother, Walter, as he led their long-distance stepsister away.

“I need a drink,” Samantha said.

“Great idea,” Bailey agreed, and they all drifted over to the punch bowl.

Samantha really wasn’t much of a drinker, but a good stiff belt sure seemed to help a lot of movie characters through stressful moments and right about now she was willing to give it a try. “I wish this was spiked,” she muttered.

Bailey looked across the room at their mother. “I feel so bad for Mom.”

Muriel Sterling-Wittman sat on a folding chair framed by the weak winter light coming through the window behind her, a beautiful tragic figure starting the new year alone. Her basic black dress discreetly draped her Betty Boop curves and her hair was still the same shiny chestnut it had been when Samantha was a girl, courtesy of the geniuses at Sleeping Lady Salon. The green eyes Waldo once raved about were bloodshot from crying but still looked lovely thanks to lashes thick with waterproof mascara. Half the men in the room were hovering around with tissues in case she found herself in need.

“Well, at least we won’t have to worry about her being lonely,” Bailey said. She was the spitting image of their mother and the most like her, as well—sweet, positive and naive.

Cecily gave a cynical snort. “Much good any of those men will do her. They’re all married.”

“Not Ed,” Bailey pointed out.

“He’s got the hots for Pat over at the bookstore,” Samantha said, and mentally added, Thank God.

“Arnie’s not married,” Bailey said. “Neither is Mayor Stone. Or Waldo’s brother. Wouldn’t it be sweet if—”

Samantha cut her off. “Let’s not even put that thought out in the universe.” All they needed was another man coming along and convincing Mom that the third time would be the charm.

“Look at them. Waldo’s barely gone and they’re already circling around her like some old-guy version of The Bachelor.” Cecily shook her head. “Men.”

“You know, for a matchmaker you sure have a sucky attitude,” Bailey observed.

“Where do you think I got it?” Cecily retorted.

“How do you manage to stay in business?” Bailey asked in disgust.

“By staying superficial.” Cecily gave them a wicked grin.

Cecily was the only blonde in the family and she was the prettiest of them all with perfect features and the longest legs. Samantha had been cute with her red hair and freckles, but it was Cecily the boys drooled over. Still, in spite of her good looks, Cupid had never been kind to her. So far she’d gone through two fiancés. Samantha didn’t understand how Cecily could make money matching up beautiful people in L.A. but couldn’t seem to get it right when it came to her own love life.

Like you’re doing so well?

Touché, she told her snarky self.

“You’re enough to make a woman give up on love,” Bailey muttered as she nodded and smiled politely at old Mr. Nilsen, who was ogling her from the other side of the hall.

“That would be the smart thing to do,” Cecily said.

“Well, I don’t think Mom’s ready to give up on love. Maybe you could match her up with someone,” Bailey suggested.

“No!” Several people turned to stare and Samantha downed a slug of punch in an effort to put out the fire in her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Could a woman suddenly get Tourette’s at thirty?

The wicked in Cecily’s grin kicked up a notch. “I know what you mean. No one will ever be able to replace Waldo.”

“I liked Waldo, I really did,” Samantha said. “But no more men. I’ve got enough to deal with already.”

“Gosh, Sammy.” Bailey frowned at her.

Samantha frowned back. “Hey, baby sister, you two get to go back to sunny California and match up lonely millionaires and cater events for starlets. I’m the one stuck with the fallout here.”

Cecily sobered. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We’re leaving you with a mess. You’ve got the business to sort out, plus Mom’s affairs.”

“Except if anyone can do it, you can, Sammy,” Bailey said, linking arms with her.

Samantha sighed. As the oldest it was her job to be the rock everyone leaned on—although right now she didn’t feel like a rock. She felt like a pebble on a beach about to be swept away by a tsunami.

And her own mother had been the one to unwittingly drop her there. She and Muriel loved each other dearly, but they often disagreed. And before Waldo died they’d disagreed a lot, especially when Samantha tried to get her mother to talk sense into him.

“He’s not feeling well,” Mom kept saying, but when pressed for details she’d remained vague.

Maybe the poor guy’s heart had been acting up all along. Maybe he’d been so worried about his bad health he hadn’t been able to concentrate and that was why he’d made such poor decisions. Except that didn’t explain his odd purchases. Or the answers he’d given her when she asked about them.

“A man needs to be able to protect what’s his,” he’d said when she’d questioned him about the gun.

“In Icicle Falls?” she’d countered. The biggest crime they’d had all year was when Amanda Stevens keyed Jimmy Rodriguez’s Jeep after he’d cheated on her with another girl. And Jimmy hadn’t pressed charges.

“You never know,” Waldo had hedged. “I saw someone. In the parking lot.”

“Doing what?” she’d asked.

“He was following me. And don’t tell your mother,” he’d said. “I don’t want to worry her.”

Like he’d just worried his stepdaughter? Then there’d been the water.

“We could have an avalanche and be trapped here for days,” he’d said.

She’d let that slide, too. Until things started getting really bad. And then, just when she’d decided she and her mother would need to have a very unpleasant conversation, Waldo had walked from their house on Alpine Drive into town and keeled over dead right in front of Lupine Floral. Poor Kevin had dropped the roses he’d been storing in the cooler and run out to give him CPR while his partner, Heinrich, called 9-1-1, but Waldo was dead within minutes.

And now she was stuck dealing with the mess he’d left behind. Her sisters were leaving on Monday and she was the one who’d be dealing with their mother and figuring out how to pay the people who depended on Sweet Dreams for their livelihood. Great-grandma Rose, who’d started this business on a dream, was probably turning in her grave at what her descendants had done to it.

Samantha frowned at her half-empty punch cup. The glass is half empty…the glass is half full. Either way, “This stuff needs booze.”

Chapter Two

Your biggest asset is your family.

—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Work and Love

Two hours later, friends and extended relatives had exhausted themselves on the topic of Waldo and consumed all the potato salad and cold cuts. The party was over. Sent on their way with one final hug from Olivia Wallace and a paper plate containing half a dozen lemon bars, the three sisters and their mother stepped outside to a cold, cloudless night.

Mom looked as drained as Samantha felt. Only Mom’s exhaustion was from pure grief. Samantha’s was contaminated by a less pure mixture of feelings.

“I’ll follow you guys back to the house,” she said, and went in search of her car.

It was now five-thirty on a Friday afternoon and the old-fashioned lampposts along Center Street stood sentinel over a downtown shopping area about to go to sleep for the night. Nearby restaurants like Zelda’s and Schwangau would open for business, but here, on what the locals dubbed Tourist Street, the shops were closed and only a smattering of cars remained.

Samantha loved their little downtown, its park with the gazebo and multitude of flower beds, its cobbled streets edged with quaint shops, the mountains standing guard over it. Normally this time of year the mountains would have worn a thick blanket of snow, and both cross-country and downhill skiers, as well as snowboarders, would be in town for the weekend, shopping, eating in the restaurants, enjoying the little outdoor skating rink and admiring the Bavarian architecture. But these days there were few visitors. It had been a lean year for snow. Heck, it had been a lean year, period, and several once-thriving shops were now shuttered.

Businesses going under—don’t even think about that.

Too late. That was all it took to make her angry once more about her own company’s troubles and she had to remind herself that her world, unlike her mother’s, had not come to an end. Somehow she’d manage to pull the business from the brink but Mom would never have her husband back. This was the second one she’d lost in five years. What was that like, to be in love and happy and lose it all not once but twice? Samantha thought back to her own romantic troubles and realized she had no point of reference. She could only imagine.

She needed to be a supportive daughter, lock any negative thoughts inside her head and keep her big mouth shut. Mouth shut, mouth shut, mouth shut. She chanted it for the last several steps to her car. Then she got in, closed the door and said it one more time. “Mouth shut.” Okay. She was ready.

She got to the house to find Cecily starting a fire in the big stone fireplace, the sound of crackling cedar already filling the great room. Bailey was arranging cards along the mantelpiece where Waldo’s ashes reposed in a brass urn, while in the kitchen Mom made tea. The plate of lemon bars sat on the granite countertop. It was a regular postwake party.

Bailey turned at the sound of the door and knocked the urn, making it wobble and their mother gasp. Fortunately, Cecily grabbed it before it could tip.

“Sorry,” Bailey said.

Mom shot a look heavenward. “Put him on the hearth, honey.”

Cecily nodded solemnly and moved Waldo to safety.

Samantha shed her coat and hung it in the closet, then forced herself to walk to the kitchen and ask her mother if she needed help.

Mom shook her head, her gaze riveted on the mugs lined up in front of her on the counter. “Would you like some tea?”

The offer came out stiffly. No surprise. The way they’d been not getting along lately, she could almost envision her mother lacing hers with arsenic. “No. Thanks.”

She suddenly longed for the comfort of her little one-bedroom condo at the edge of town, where she’d find no emotional undercurrents and the new man in her life would be waiting to welcome her—Nibs, her cat. Everyone would be fine here without her. Mom had Cecily and Bailey to keep her company and listen to her Waldo stories. And they could do it guilt-free.

“I think I’ll take off.”

“Stay for a little while,” Mom said.

Or not. Samantha nodded and went to slump on the couch.

“Tea is ready,” Mom announced. Cecily and Bailey both picked up their mugs and returned to join their sister, Cecily taking up a position on the couch next to Samantha and Bailey settling on the hearth beside Waldo.

Mom followed and sat on the yellow leather chair she always read in. She took a sip of her tea, then set the mug on the coffee table, laid back her head and sighed deeply. “I just want you girls to know how much I’ve appreciated the moral support. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that Waldo is gone.”

“He’ll be missed,” Bailey said.

“Yes, he will,” Mom agreed, giving Samantha a look that dared her to say any different.

No way was she taking that dare. “I need a lemon bar,” she muttered.

“Never mind that. Let’s get the hard stuff,” Cecily said. “Break out the chocolate.”

But there wasn’t so much as a shaving of chocolate in the house. Mom had gone on a binge. So Bailey stayed with her while Samantha and Cecily made a run to the shop.

Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company occupied prime real estate a few streets back from Center Street on a block the locals nicknamed Foodie Paradise. Across from them was Gingerbread Haus, Cassandra Wilkes’s fantasy bakery, specializing in fanciful baked goods. At Christmas she was swamped with orders for her gingerbread houses and shipped them all over the world. Next to that was the Spice Rack, which carried every exotic spice known to man. Every time the door opened, the scent of lavender or sage drifted out to tickle noses and tempt shoppers inside, and whenever she was in town Bailey practically lived there. On the other side of Gingerbread Haus sat Bavarian Brews, where everyone went to chitchat and indulge in great coffee—very convenient when Samantha needed a quick pick-me-up. Down the street they could see Schwangan’s, a five-star restaurant and another popular destination. Its owner and head chef, Franz Reinholdt, made a mean schnitzel.

The Sterlings had the biggest piece of land, though—so far, anyway—and an inspiring view, with their second-story offices looking down on the town from one side and out over the Wenatchee River from the other. The factory and retail store occupied a full block. The warehouse, part of the company’s pre-Waldo expansion, occupied another. It should have been full of a lot more supplies and inventory than it currently was. Sigh.

Samantha unlocked the store, flipped on the light and turned off the alarm as Cecily strolled in.

“Sometimes I miss this place,” Cecily said, taking in the gift shop with its various shelves and display tables of treats. There was plenty to drool over—goodie bags of enrobed fruit, chocolate-dipped apples, potato chips and cookies, boxes of mixed chocolates, gift boxes of salted caramels, cognac truffles made from Great-grandma Rose’s secret recipe, fudge and hot fudge sauces (Mom’s contribution to the line) that ranged from spicy Mexican to chocolate mint. Over in the corner under the TV that played a video feed of the gang in the factory hard at work, shoppers could find all manner of nonedible goodies, including candy dishes, chocolate scented candles, little kitchen signs with chick-centric statements like “The Best Kisses Are Chocolate” and “I’d Give Up Chocolate but I’m No Quitter.”

“You can take the girl out of the chocolate company but you can’t take the chocolate out of the girl,” Samantha teased, snagging a box of truffles and walking over to the cash register. “Have you got any money? All I have on me is a five.” And she was lucky to have that.

Her sister looked at her in shock. “Since when do we have to pay?”

“Since we went broke.” Samantha held out a hand, palm up.

Cecily frowned and dug out her wallet. “I have to pay for chocolate from my own company? This sucks.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“Keep the change,” Cecily said, and handed over a twenty.

“Thanks. I will.”

“It really is bad, isn’t it?”

“No,” Samantha said firmly. Maybe if she said it enough she’d believe it.

As a little girl she’d loved hearing the stories of how Great-grandma Rose started the company in her kitchen, of the recipes that literally came to her in her dreams, how she and her husband, Dusty, used their life’s savings to buy this piece of land and build a modest shop back when Icicle Falls was nothing but a rough-and-tumble collection of mismatched buildings. Sweet Dreams wasn’t just a company. It was a family legend. It was also a source of income for thirty families and she was going to pull them out of this tailspin no matter what it took.

Cecily leaned on the counter and gave her an assessing stare. “Are you lying to me?”

“Yes, but things could be worse. We still have inventory.” Samantha stowed away the money, then opened the box, pulled out a truffle and popped it in her mouth. It hit her taste buds like a drug and she let the sweetness travel over her tongue. She could almost feel a troupe of endorphins doing a happy dance through her body. A girl could bite off even the biggest challenge if it was coated in chocolate.

“So what are we going to do besides eat the inventory?” Cecily asked.

Cecily had been the one dissenting voice way back when they’d talked about taking out a loan and expanding the company, ignoring both Samantha’s charts and Dad’s confidence. At the time Samantha had accused her of a lack of vision.

That was both ironic and stupid, she now had to admit, since Cecily had uncanny instincts. In high school she could always sense a surprise quiz lurking around the corner, and she knew when her sisters were going to break up with their boyfriends long before they ever had a clue. After Dad died, she’d predicted Mom would be remarried within the year. She’d only been off by a few months.

But when it came to business Samantha had prided herself on her expertise and bulldozed over all objections, dreaming big and ready to gamble big, and Dad had backed her. Now, between her ambition and the disaster that was Waldo, she was in danger of losing big. Her father’s confidence had been sadly misplaced. Suddenly the box of truffles was looking all wavy, like they were underwater. She blinked and a tear dropped on the counter.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay,” Cecily said. “You’ll sort things out. I know you will.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “Do you really believe that or are you trying to make me feel good?”

“A little of both. Meanwhile, though, maybe you could talk to Arnie over at the bank, see what he can do?”

“Arnie’s on his way out.”

Cecily blinked. “What?”

“I heard Cascade Mutual is bringing in a new manager. I have no idea what that person will be like.” Maybe he’d turn out to be as nice as Arnie. She could hope. But realistically, she suspected that the good old days of having a community bank that cared were gone. Arnie had cared a little too much, which had a lot to do with why the bank was under new management.

Cecily twirled a lock of blond hair. “Maybe I could get a loan.”

“No,” Samantha said. “We could be on the Titanic here and if we are, I don’t want you going down with us.”

“We’re family and this is a family business. We stick together. Remember?”

“Thanks.” Her sister’s words were comforting, but when it came right down to it, Samantha was both captain and crew of this ship and steering clear of disaster was going to be her responsibility.

“I’m sure I could come up with something,” Cecily insisted.

L.A. was not a cheap place to live and do business, and Samantha had no intention of saddling her sister with a big chunk of debt. Anyway, Cecily would never be able to come up with the kind of money they needed. “I’ll manage.”

“You always do, but I just want you to know that you don’t have to do this alone. After all, I still owe you for stealing your diary,” Cecily said with a smile.

Samantha couldn’t help smiling, too, at the memory of finding her sister reading her deepest twelve-year-old thoughts to her friends. Pretty darned funny now. Not so much at the time. “You were lucky you lived to see middle school.”

Cecily sobered. “I want to do something to earn my share of the profits when they start coming in again.”

“If I think of something, I’ll let you know,” Samantha told her, but they both knew she didn’t really mean it. She’d already had one person—Waldo—“helping” and that was enough for a lifetime.

Cecily reopened the box and bit into a truffle, then offered another to Samantha. “I know things will turn around.”

“I hope you know as much as you think you know,” Samantha said. Otherwise… Oh, no. She wasn’t going down that rocky road. Not yet, anyway.

Chapter Three

Always stop and think before you act. This is the first rule of good relationships and good business.

—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love

It was Monday, and all was quiet now that the girls were gone. In a way Muriel relished the solitude. It gave her a chance to grieve freely. But the house seemed so empty and she felt so alone. Her daughters had lives of their own to return to, though, and she couldn’t blame them for running off. It certainly wasn’t any fun being with her. She hadn’t even made them breakfast before Samantha took them to the airport.

Muriel poured herself a mug of tea and padded barefoot over to her picture window to gaze at the winter scene outside. Fir and pine trees shook off a thin blanket of snow too wet to stick. The houses on her block sat empty and unlit, waiting for their owners, who all had lives, to return. A truck sloshed down the street, making only a momentary dent in the smothering silence.

Okay, she’d seen enough. She got her tea and went back to bed, placing the mug on the nightstand for easy access. Even though she was wearing a sweater over her favorite silk pajamas the bed still felt cold. Both her husbands had been bed hogs, especially Waldo. He not only slept diagonally, every time he rolled over he pulled the covers with him like a giant ebb tide. It used to irritate her no end. No ebb tide now.

Hot tears pricked her eyes. Hard to believe she had any left after the past week. She wiped them away and took a determined sip of tea. “You can’t just stay in bed all day,” she told herself.

And then argued back. “Why not?” Who cared whether she stayed in bed or got up?

She was alone again.

Oh, stop, she scolded herself. Waldo’s sudden death was a blessing. Would you have wanted him to suffer?

The answer, of course, was no.

With that settled in her mind (for today, anyway), she drank some more tea and surveyed the room like a pioneer checking out new territory. What to do in this new territory? Where to start?

Normally by ten o’clock in the morning she’d already be hard at work on her next book for Mountain Crest Publications, a small Pacific Northwest publisher. She hadn’t made much money as a writer but she’d enjoyed the experience. It held no appeal for her now, though, not when she was back in this dark place.

Those months after Stephen died had been a nightmare, even worse than losing either of her parents—and she’d thought nothing could top that. Widowhood went beyond loneliness. It cut off half your soul.

Now, going through it again so soon was more than she could handle. All she could do was drift through the house like a wraith. With no one to cook for she had no interest in food, not even chocolate, the family’s lifeblood. Planning Waldo’s funeral had been torture. Walking past his desk and seeing all those bills had been terrifying. She had no head for money and math was a mystery, one she’d never needed to solve. After all, she’d had Stephen. When he died the only thing that kept her from throwing herself (or at least her checkbook) off Sleeping Lady Mountain had been the patient helpfulness of Arnie at Cascade Mutual.

She’d breathed a sigh of relief when Waldo rode into her life like a knight on a white horse, but he’d gone out like Don Quixote and here she was again, lost and adrift. Why Waldo, of all people? He’d been so sweet, and his laugh—everyone, including her, had loved to hear him laugh. Without him the house was a tomb and she felt numb. And the book she’d been working on was as dead as her husband.

Her editor had wanted Muriel to capitalize on her chocolate connection more than she had in her previous books and had urged her to do a cookbook featuring chocolate recipes. She’d resisted. She’d been so happy with Waldo she’d wanted to write about how to start over again. She couldn’t write about that now. She couldn’t write. Period.

She set the mug on the nightstand and slipped under the covers. Cocooned beneath her down comforter, she eventually drifted off to sleep and found Waldo.

But he wasn’t the only one keeping her company in her dreams. Stephen showed up, too, and there they were, all at a dance at Festival Hall, dressed in German attire.

She had just danced with Stephen, who looked dashing in lederhosen, and now Waldo was sweeping her away in a polka. “Come on, Muriel, old girl, let’s have fun. Life is short.”

Suddenly the doors to the hall blew open and a swirling black tornado entered the room, whisking Muriel off her feet and separating her from him. Salted caramels swirled all around her and she kept grabbing for them, but she couldn’t catch even one. And now the wind was whooshing her out the door. “No, I’m not ready to leave!”

Muriel’s eyes popped open. It took her a second to realize she was home in bed with late-afternoon shadows sprawled across the bedspread. She couldn’t have slept the day away. She looked at the clock. It was going on four. She had.

And what had that strange dream been about? What was her subconscious trying to tell her? Maybe that she was going insane.

* * *

Bailey gave Samantha one more hug and then followed Cecily into Sea-Tac Airport to catch their late-afternoon flight to L.A.

Once through the sliding glass doors both sisters turned and waved a final goodbye. She waved back and swallowed a lump in her throat. Not for the first time she wished they lived closer, but a girl had to follow her dreams. It was too bad their dreams had led them all in different directions.

She heaved a sigh, then got in her trusty Toyota and began the two-hour drive back to the other side of the mountains. She’d barely get home in time to bake cookies before going to hang out with her other sisters, sisters of the heart. Monday wasn’t normally a party night but tonight was an exception.

Back home, Samantha baked up the cookie dough Bailey had left in her freezer. Then she pulled on her down coat and her winter boots and walked the short distance from her condo to her friend Charley’s snug little house, which overlooked Icicle Creek. A moonlit sky speckled with stars lit her way, but she could have found the house just as easily by following the noise. A soundtrack of Gloria Gaynor singing “I Will Survive” was blasting an accompaniment to raucous laughter. Obviously the party was in full swing.

She walked around to the back of the house. The deck was lit with several strings of pink flamingo party lights. Patio chairs sprawled every which way and a picnic table was laden with salads and desserts. But the action was taking place around the fire pit on the lawn, and in the center of it all stood Charlene Albach. Charley, a slender woman in her mid-thirties with dark hair cut in a messy bob, looked fashionable in jeans, ankle boots and a faux-fur-trimmed jacket. She was holding what had to be the world’s largest wineglass and dumping a handful of photos onto a roaring bonfire.

“Samantha, get yourself down here,” she called. “We’re burning weenies.”

The symbolism wasn’t lost on Samantha and she smiled as she put her cookies on the table. She plucked one off the plate and then walked down to join the group of women gathered around the fire. One she recognized as Charley’s older sister, Amy, who had come up from Portland for the occasion. And there was Elena, Samantha’s loyal secretary; Lauren, her teller from the bank; her pal Cassandra Wilkes from Gingerbread Haus; Heidi Schwartz, who worked part-time in the Sweet Dreams gift shop; and Rita Reyes and Maria Gomez, who worked for Charley at her restaurant, Zelda’s—all present to help Charley celebrate her first official day of freedom. Earlier that morning Charley’s divorce had become final.

She set aside her glass and handed Samantha a hot dog skewered on a stainless-steel toasting fork. “Welcome to the celebration. Have a dick-on-a-stick.”

From their side of the fire Rita and Maria laughed uproariously. “I need more wine,” Rita said. “Can I get you some?” she asked Samantha.

Samantha didn’t have much of a palate for wine. She shook her head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“You have to drink something. We’re going to be toasting my future, you know,” Charley said. “Get her some of that ChocoVine. It tastes just like Baileys. You’ll like it,” she informed Samantha. “Trust me.”

“‘Trust me’—isn’t that what worthless old Richard said to you?” quipped her sister.

Charley scowled. “Yes, he did.” She picked up more pictures of her ex and sprinkled them over the fire. “Here, baby, make yourself useful.”

All the women sent up a cheer, including Samantha. Even as she did, she thought of her mother, probably sitting home in that yellow leather chair of hers, wishing Waldo was still alive. But there was leaving and there was leaving. Waldo hadn’t left voluntarily. Richard had opted for a dishonorable discharge from marriage, taking off with the hostess from Zelda’s.

Either way, though, both women had wound up on their own. When it came right down to it, Samantha concluded, the one person a girl could count on was herself.

“So,” Cass said, raising her glass after Rita had returned to the fire. “To a new and better future for our girl here.”

“To a new and better future,” they all echoed and drank.

“And to never having to watch another football game,” Cass added.

“I’ll drink to that,” said Maria. “My boyfriend.” She rolled her eyes. “One of these days he’s going to turn into a football.”

“Better than turning into a cheater.” Charley threw another pile of photos on the fire. “I am so glad I found out what kind of man Richard really was before I wasted another twelve years on him.”

“Twelve years is a long time,” Amy said.

For a moment Charley’s eyes glistened with tears but she lifted her chin and said, “Too long, and I’m not wasting so much as a minute missing that man. He can have his new woman and his new restaurant in the city. Seattle’s loss is my gain. And I have the bed all to myself now.”

“I’m jealous,” her sister murmured.

“I can watch as many episodes of What Not to Wear as I want,” Charlie continued, “leave the dishes in the sink and spend my money however I decide. And I bet I’ve lost more weight than anyone here.”

“You do look great,” Samantha agreed.

“You would, too, if you’d lost a hundred and fifty-five pounds of dead weight,” Charley cracked, “and good riddance.”

“You know, I never liked him,” Cass said.

“Me, neither,” Charley’s sister threw in.

“Why didn’t you guys say something?” Charley demanded. “No, never mind, don’t answer that. I probably wouldn’t have listened.”

“Love is blind,” Cass said. “And dumb.”

As the night went on the women shared memories, collecting evidence that Richard the defector was indeed nothing but a rat. The wine flowed and the party got increasingly loud, especially when Charley cranked up the CD and the women started singing at the top of their lungs to “Before He Cheats,” “Over It” and “I Can Do Better.”

Finally a neighbor a couple of houses away hollered, “Shut up over there,” and everyone giggled.

The food and drink was consumed and the fire had flickered down to embers and the women remembered they had to work the following day. Charley smiled around the circle at all of them. “Thanks for coming, you guys, and for helping me feel positive about the future.”

“You’re always positive about the future,” Heidi said. “I’m not sure I could be if I was in your shoes.”

Samantha doubted Heidi—with a husband who adored her and an adorable baby—would ever have to worry about that.

Charley managed a shrug. “There were a few times this past year when I didn’t feel very positive at all. But you know what? I’m taking back my life. I’ve got a lot of years ahead of me and I intend to enjoy every one of them.”

“You think you’ll ever get married again?” Heidi asked.

Charley made a cross with her fingers as if warding off a vampire. “Bite your tongue.”

“You might want somebody around to bite yours once in a while.” Rita laughed. “Or other parts of you.”

“Men are still good for some things,” Elena put in. “In fact, they’re good for a lot of things. You shouldn’t give up on all of them just because you got a bad one.”

“Yes,” said Lauren, who was dating Joe Coyote, the nicest man in town.

“Well, when you find a good one, let me know and I’ll take him—to the cleaner’s.” Charley’s comment made everyone laugh. “Seriously,” she added, “love’s a gamble, and I’m done gambling.”

“Heck, all of life’s a gamble,” Samantha said.

Charley gave her a one-armed hug. “You’re right. But I’m going to make sure the deck’s stacked in my favor, so from now on I’ll just keep men as friends.”

“Friends with benefits?” Rita teased as they tossed the last of the paper plates on the embers.

“Maybe.” Charley shrugged. “Who knows what the future holds. I’m open to anything but marriage.”

“But don’t you want kids?” Heidi asked.

Samantha thought of Elena’s handicapped daughter and the baby Rita had lost last year. Parenthood could be as risky as marriage.

“I don’t need a man to have children,” Charley said. “That’s why there’s adoption. Meanwhile, you’ll share James, right? I’ll be his Aunt Charley and spoil him rotten.”

Baby-sharing. It saved a girl from those pesky little complications, like men. And childbirth. Still, it wasn’t the same as having a child of your own.

As Samantha walked home she had plenty to think about. Did she ever want to try and have a serious relationship? Her parents had had a great marriage. It could be done. Every man out there wasn’t a Waldo or a Richard. And just because she’d picked one Mr. Wrong didn’t mean she couldn’t find Mr. Right. Although she was beginning to wonder what the odds of that were. She hadn’t dated anyone since college who even qualified as Mr. Maybe. Sheesh.

Look at it this way, she told herself. Your life has nowhere to go but up.

* * *

Or not. At the office the next morning Samantha ground her teeth as she sat at Waldo’s old desk, which was now going to be hers, and sorted through a mountain of papers in preparation for meeting with Lizzy, who had, thank God, consented to return. There was the mock-up for their spring catalog that he’d insisted on looking at three weeks ago and then ignored. And what did he need with a week’s worth of old newspapers? In another pile she found several threatening letters from suppliers who hadn’t been paid. She’d have to start calling them this afternoon, explain about Waldo’s death and beg for mercy. Oh, and here was a week-old invitation from Cascade Mutual to come to their open house and meet the new manager, Blake Preston, who, according to the invite, was anxious to assist her in any way he could.

Blake Preston? The former football hero of Icicle Falls High? He’d been four years ahead of her in school and she’d been too young for his crowd, but it was a small school and everyone knew everyone. He’d winked at her a few times when they’d passed in the hall, like that was supposed to make her day. It had.

Yes, good old Blake had been a player both on and off the field. But how the heck had he wound up as a bank manager? Banking and football didn’t exactly go hand in hand.

She frowned, remembering the jocks she’d shared classes with as a college business major, not to mention the one she almost married. Guys like that spent more time studying their playbooks than listening to what the professor had to say in lecture hall. Some of those doofs should never have been given a business degree, but they’d gotten one, anyway. Her doof not only got a degree, he’d dumped her and gotten the richest girl in their graduating class. (And a cushy job with Daddy, too.) Thank God she’d gone out of state for her college education. At least she’d never have to see him and Mrs. Doof again. Wherever he’d ended up, he was probably busy ignoring his company to play golf and lunch with his old frat buddies.

So what old frat buddy had given Blake Preston entrée into the world of banking? Whoever it was, he hadn’t done Icicle Falls any favor. She tossed the invite in the wastebasket and kept digging.

One more layer of paper down she found a ticking time bomb—another piece of correspondence from the bank, this one not so nice. Her heart shifted into overdrive and she fell back against Waldo’s big leather chair, sure she was going to have a heart attack. There, under the Cascade Mutual letterhead, was a cold but polite missive informing her stepfather that Sweet Dreams was behind on its loan payment. “As you are aware”—were they?—“Cascade Mutual Bank has a strict ninety-day grace period regarding overdue installment payments. This grace period has expired on your note in the amount of…”

Ooooh. The numbers danced in front of her eyes like tiny demons. No, this couldn’t be happening! She read on.

“Because Sweet Dreams Chocolates and Cascade Mutual Bank have a long-standing relationship, we are extending the grace period until February 28, at which time the aforementioned amount is due in full. It is hoped this matter can be resolved as soon as possible.”

Only if she started printing money in the basement. What in the name of Godiva was she going to do?

Hyperventilate! A bag, where was a bag? She couldn’t breathe. She was going to be sick. She needed chocolate! Her cell phone rang. The ring tone—Gwen Stefani’s “Sweet Escape”—told her it was Cecily and she grabbed it like a lifeline. “Cec, we… Oh, I’m going to pass out. Where’s a bag?” She rifled through desk drawers, but came up all she came up with was an old cigar, paper clips, rubber bands and—what was this? A stress ball. She scooped it up and strangled it.

“What’s wrong?”

“We— The bank. Oh, my God, I can’t believe this!” Samantha wailed, and burst into tears.

Now she’d made so much noise that Elena had rushed into the office. “What’s going on?” One look at Samantha and the blood drained from her face. “Madre de Dios.”

“Get me chocolate,” Samantha panted, and squeezed the stress ball again. These things were useless. She threw it across the room and grabbed a fistful of hair as Elena rushed off to find a dose of restorative chocolate.

“Sam, tell me what’s going on,” Cecily demanded.

“The bank is calling in their note. As if everything wasn’t already enough of a mess. As if we didn’t already owe the whole friggin’ world! My God, what did I ever do to deserve this? Is it because I bossed you guys around when we were little? I’m sorry. And I shouldn’t have stood up Tony Barrone for homecoming. No, that’s not it. It’s because I yelled at Waldo.”

“Sam, please,” Cecily pleaded. “You’re scaring me.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid. What old movie was that from? Probably one where everybody died.

Samantha laid her head on the desk and pulled a newspaper over her. Now she understood why the groundhog went back underground when it saw its shadow. She wished she could dig a hole and pull it in after herself and never come out.

From a distance her sister called, “Sam? Sam!”

“I give up,” she moaned, pulling the phone under her paper tent and back to her ear. “I surrender. Match me up with a millionaire. I just want to lie around on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean and drink ChocoVine.”

“No, you don’t,” Cecily said firmly. “You’re not wired that way and you’d be bored out of your mind in a week.”

“I’m not wired for this,” Samantha whimpered.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Elena was back now, slipping an open box of truffles under the newspaper.

“Thank you,” Samantha said. She shoved a handful in her mouth.

Elena lifted a corner of the paper and peered under it. “What else do you need?”

“A new life.” Samantha pulled the newspaper off her head and forced herself to sit up and push her hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine,” she told both Elena and herself. “Just a temporary meltdown.”

Her secretary hovered, looking doubtful.

“Really. It’s okay.” What a big, fat liar she was.

Elena still looked dubious, but she got the hint and left, shutting the door behind her.

Samantha picked up her phone. “Okay. I’m okay now.” No, she wasn’t. Who was she kidding? Where were they going to get that kind of money?

“Maybe you could go over to the bank and charm the new guy in charge into giving you a little more time,” Cecily suggested.

They’d given her a little more time. Very little. “This is business. Charm doesn’t enter into it.” Damn.

“Charm enters into business more than you realize,” Cecily said.

Samantha sighed. “You’re right. I’ll have to go over there and talk to the new manager. Sweet Dreams is a vital part of the town’s economy. It’s in everyone’s interest for the bank to work with us and help us get through this rough patch.” That was exactly what she’d say to him. Rules could be bent if everyone benefited in the long run.

She took a deep cleansing breath and told herself she felt better already. Big, fat liar.

“There you go,” Cecily said encouragingly.

“And I’ll take him some of our wares,” Samantha decided. “Who doesn’t like chocolate?”

“Charm and bribery, a businesswoman’s best friends.”

Samantha sure hoped so. She thanked her sister for the shrink session, then buzzed Elena on the office phone.

“You okay now?” Elena asked.

“Yes,” Samantha lied. “Call down to Luke and tell him to put together the mother of all gift baskets.”

* * *

At 10:00 a.m. Samantha walked into the bank bearing a cellophane-wrapped basket filled to the brim with goodies from Sweet Dreams Chocolates. If this didn’t melt Blake Preston’s heart—well, then, he had no heart to melt.

Speaking of, there he sat at the manager’s desk in the far corner, a sandy-haired tackling dummy in a suit. Blake Preston looked more suited to a WWE Friday night smack down than to sitting behind a bank manager’s desk, deciding the fate of local businesses.

Lauren sent Samantha a welcoming smile from her teller’s counter, but the one she got from Blake Preston when he saw her approach his desk wasn’t quite so friendly. Wary would’ve been a better word for it. Even wary, it qualified for a toothpaste commercial. Whoa, that was some wattage, and she felt the electricity clear across the room. She couldn’t help checking his left hand for signs of a ring as he stood to greet her. None.

Never mind his ring finger or any other part of him. You’re here to do business.

She could almost hear her sister whispering in her ear, “Charm enters into business more than you realize.”

She donned her most charming smile and said, “Hi,” injecting her voice with goodwill. You like me. You want to give me a longer extension on my loan. “I’m Samantha Sterling from Sweet Dreams Chocolates. We went to high school together,” she added, hoping that would earn her some brownie points.

He held out his hand for her to shake. She took it and felt an even bigger jolt than she’d gotten from his smile. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe they were going to hit it off. Maybe he’d be happy to grab a mop and help her clean up the mess she was in.

“I remember,” he said.

Right. You were older and too busy partying and cutting classes to pay attention to a nerdy underclassman. “I was just a lowly freshman, but you made quite an impression.” There, that was pretty darned charming if she did say so herself. “I thought you might enjoy some samples from the best chocolate company in Washington,” she said, handing over the gift basket.

He took it and stood there as if uncertain what to do with it. His computer and several piles of papers were taking up all the surface space on his desk. “Well, thanks. That was…nice. Have a seat.”

She sat and he sat, still holding the goodies.

“You’ll really like the chocolate-covered potato chips,” she said, pointing to her basketful of bribes. “Those are our newest product.”

“Interesting.” He shifted the fortune in chocolate sitting on his lap as awkwardly as though he were an old bachelor who’d just been handed a baby.

Okay, that took care of the charm. Next, she decided to play the sympathy card. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but we’ve had a few challenges in our business. We just lost my stepfather.”

“I heard. I’m sorry,” he said, and looked properly sympathetic.

“Things have been a little chaotic and then this morning I discovered a letter from you.”

He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid we have something of a problem. You’re behind on your loan.”

As if she wasn’t aware of that? As if she hadn’t read the friggin’ letter? She could feel her blood pressure rising and it took every last ounce of willpower she had to remain professional. “This business has been in my family for a long time. I’m the fourth generation.”

“Ms. Sterling. Samantha. I understand what this business must mean to you.”

No, you don’t. You have no idea. She was probably radiating anger. She tried her best to look charming. “Not just to me. We employ a lot of people, all who have families and live in this town.”

“I know that. I grew up here. But—”

Oh, no. Here came the but.

“But the kind of leniency the bank indulged in under the previous management is what got them in so much trouble.”

“I’m not asking for any more money,” she said, keeping her voice low so everyone in this fishbowl wouldn’t hear her. “I just need a few months to sort things out. If you could give us a little extra time, extend the loan…”

Now he was shaking his head sadly. “I’m afraid I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t. As I said in the letter, Cascade Mutual has a strict ninety-day policy on past-due loans. We’ve already extended yours until the end of next month.”

“I recognize that,” she said, and trotted out her most charming smile, “but surely you can make an exception for extreme circumstances. All we need is another six months while we restructure the company.”

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I really am. I wish I could extend the deadline but my hands are tied. You’re going to have to come up with that money before the end of February.”

“That would take a miracle,” she protested.

He heaved those big boulders that passed for shoulders in a helpless shrug. “We’ve got several churches in town. I think if I were you I’d have them start praying.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, you have a sick sense of humor.”

“I wasn’t kidding,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you further but I’ve got my orders.”

What was this, the military? “You’re a bank manager,” she said between gritted teeth. “You could do some managing and find a way to work with me.”

He shook his head. “Don’t think I haven’t been trying. I’m aware of what your company means to the community and I appreciate your situation.”

“I’ll just bet,” she growled. Oh, very charming, Samantha.

Well, who cared? Her ship had already gone down and she was now bobbing in the icy waters of despair. And she’d given him treats to eat while he watched her turn blue. All her business training, all her sister’s advice to be charming, fled before her rage. She stood and plucked the basket from his lap.

He blinked in shock. “What—”

“There’s no use wasting fine chocolate on those who don’t value it enough to want to save it from extinction.” And with her peace offering clutched to her chest, she turned and marched out of the bank.

* * *

The gaze of every bank employee was on Blake Preston, making him feel like a cockroach under a magnifying glass. Arnie Amundsen had left him here, an invader in a hostile land.

Of course, no one was overtly hostile. They were all too glad to have jobs for that. But he could sense his unpopularity from the polite yet lukewarm reception he’d been given, from the looks, sometimes thoughtful (What the hell are you doing here?), sometimes resentful (Who asked you to come back and meddle in our business?). He was there to get them out of the disaster their beloved Arnie had created. And if he hadn’t come to meddle in their business, they wouldn’t have a business, damn it! He knew it and they knew it. They just resented it.

And he resented the quickly snuffed snicker he’d heard in one corner of the room, the way Lauren Belgado over at her teller’s counter swallowed her serves-him-right smirk and went back to serving Heinrich Blum, who was making a deposit for Lupine Floral. The way heads lowered to hide smiles.

He pressed his lips firmly together in the hope that it would, somehow, stop the sizzle on his cheeks and neck. This would be all over town by five o’clock. Of course, no one would know the details. All anyone would be able to pass on was what they saw—him being an obvious jerk and upsetting their reigning queen of chocolate. Great, just great. Welcome back, Preston. He’d barely returned to his hometown, and he was already campaigning for Public Enemy Number One.

What was he supposed to do, anyway? He wasn’t king of the world. He was a bank manager and if he didn’t manage this bank well, it would go under. And all those old high school buddies and friends of a friend who wanted special treatment were going to have to get that through their thick heads.

Maybe that old saying was true and you couldn’t go back. Icicle Falls had been a great place to grow up. Church picnics, Boy Scout camping trips, fishing the river with Gramps. But now Blake found himself thinking he should have left small-town life in the idyllic past where it belonged. Taking this position hadn’t been a step up. It had been a step into a big pile of shit.

He adjusted his shirt collar that had gone suddenly tight and then went back to work on the loan application papers in front of him. But all he could see was Samantha Sterling’s full lips frowning at him. What had he been smoking when he decided to go into banking after he graduated from college? Heck, he could have followed his folks when they moved to Seattle and helped his dad run that Honda dealership. Or gone into computer sales and made a fortune. Or become a construction worker. Truck driver. Prison warden.

Right now he felt like a prison warden with everyone around him planning to stick him with a shiv, and all because of one angry woman. Correction, angry and unbalanced.

Of course, he could see how his predecessor had gotten sucked into making poor decisions. That long red hair, those big hazel eyes, that cute little tush—Samantha Sterling was hotter than the Wenatchee Valley in August. So were her sisters and her mother. He’d seen them around. They were a tag team of damsels in distress. He could imagine Muriel flashing a bit of cleavage and batting those thick-lashed eyes of hers at old Arnie and putting him in a trance where he’d happily give her everything, including the keys to the vault. Watching her and her daughter struggle so valiantly to keep the family business going, watching those big eyes fill with tears—the poor slob hadn’t stood a chance.

But Blake was made of sterner stuff. Of course he’d do all he could to support Samantha. He’d buy chocolates even though he was allergic to chocolate. Gram had a birthday coming up soon and he’d get her the biggest box of candy they had, and when his mother and sister were in town he’d send them to the Sweet Dreams gift shop to go crazy with his debit card. He’d even be willing to help Samantha brainstorm ways to raise funds—private investors or a loan from some of her cronies at the Chamber of Commerce. He’d have told her all that if she hadn’t had a meltdown and stomped off. But he couldn’t change bank policy just for her. He’d already gone out on a limb by extending her loan to the end of February.

It’s not your business to fix other people’s mistakes, he reminded himself. You can’t save every failing business in the state. Still, it seemed a shame to let this one die. He was well aware of the company’s history and it was the stuff of movies. Except right now the Sterlings’ story wasn’t looking like it was headed for a happy ending.

He forced himself to focus on the papers in front of him. It was impossible. All he could think about was what a villain he felt like. Sweet Dreams was Samantha Sterling’s baby and she was trying desperately to save it. If he had to lock the company’s doors and sell off its assets he’d be a baby-stealer and everyone in town would hate him. Almost as much as he’d hate himself.

* * *

Elena took one look at Samantha storming into the office and muttered, “Mierda.”

Samantha set the basket on Elena’s desk. “Take it home to your family and enjoy.”

Elena’s eyebrows drew together. “That is a lot of money there.”

“Consider it a bonus,” Samantha said. “God knows it’s probably the last one I’ll be able to give you.”

“You mustn’t talk like that,” Elena scolded. Sixteen years older and forty pounds heavier than Samantha, she sometimes forgot she was an employee and morphed into an office mother. “And why are you back with this?”

“Long story,” Samantha said, “and one I don’t want to tell.” Having shut the door on a fresh lecture, she then shut her office door on the world, plopped down at her desk and stared bitterly at the array of pictures on the wall.

Generations of successful family smiled at her. Great-grandma Rose and her husband, Dusty, wearing their best clothes, stood in front of the newly purchased building that would house Sweet Dreams Chocolates. Then there was Great Aunt Fiona and Grandma Eleanor posing in their aprons behind the counter of the retail gift shop in the fifties, and Grandpa Joe, smiling over his shoulder for the camera while he worked the line in the factory with a young José Castillo and George Loomis. There was a shot of Mom before she married Dad, sitting at the receptionist’s desk. And one of her and Grandpa, displaying the logo Mom had created for the seal on the candy boxes. There was Dad in front of the store, posing with his three daughters, the whole Sweet Dreams team gathered around and beaming. A caption beneath it read Success, How Sweet It Is!

She felt sick. She laid her head on the desk and closed her eyes.

A moment later Gwen Stefani started singing on her cell phone. Cecily again. Head still on the desk, she fumbled the phone to her ear. “Tell me you’re calling because you had a vision of money falling from heaven.”

“Sorry, no pennies from heaven. I had a feeling you might need to talk.”

What she needed was a rewind button. “I blew it at the bank.”

“What, did you walk in and shoot the new manager?”

“Worse. I gave him chocolate.”

“Bribes are good.”

“And then took it away.” What the heck was wrong with her, anyway? Was she having a psychotic break? Maybe she had multiple personalities and didn’t know it.

“Oh,” her sister said weakly. She could imagine Cecily falling into a chair in her little pink office at Perfect Matches.

“I started out charming, I really did,” Samantha defended herself. “But then he just sat there looking all smug, repeating that he couldn’t help me—like a big dumb parrot in a three-piece suit—and…I blew it, pure and simple.”

A sigh drifted over the phone line. “What would Dad say if he was here?”

He’d say, “What were you thinking, princess?” Or maybe he’d say, “You should have punched the guy’s face in.” Okay, probably not that.

“I don’t know,” Samantha said miserably.

“He’d say temper…”

Oh, yeah, that. “…and good business don’t mix,” Samantha finished with her. He’d told her that often enough, especially when she was young and impetuous.

And now she was so mature. Ha!

There was a long moment of silence before Cecily asked, “Maybe you should apologize to him?”

“Apologize! As in, ‘Gee, Mr. Dragon, I’m so sorry I got mad at you for breathing fire and devouring my village’?”

“He’s trying to save the bank like you’re trying to save Sweet Dreams.”

Ever the mediator, Samantha thought sourly. “He’s just trying to save his butt.”

Her sister heaved another sigh. “Well, you’re the business major. You know best.”

“Oh, that was cute.”

“Sorry. It’s just that, well, when it comes to business, you’re usually more in control than this.”

Samantha scowled. She hated it when her sister was right. Samantha was the oldest. She was supposed to be the most mature, the one who always knew what to do. Except when it came to Sweet Dreams, she seemed to lose all perspective.

“I wish I was up there to help you.”

“I’ll be okay,” Samantha said with a sigh. “No more meltdowns, I promise.”

“Call me if you need to.”

“Thanks I will. Meanwhile, go make some money.”

“Yeah, I should go. I’ve got a match-up cocktail party to plan and a client coming in ten minutes.”

Finding rich men for beautiful women, throwing parties at swanky restaurants—no wonder Cecily had opted for L.A. over Icicle Falls, Samantha thought as she hung up. Who would want to live in a small town when she could have the big city and beautiful people?

Samantha, that was who. She loved her mountain town with its picturesque setting and its friendly people, and she was proud that her family and their company were part of the town’s history.

She wanted them to continue to be part of its present, too. She drummed her fingers on her desk. What options did she have other than robbing the bank? Think, Samantha.

After an hour of thinking she had a headache and one last option—Waldo’s life insurance money. She wanted to go hit her mother up for a chunk of that about as much as she wanted to stick a knife in her eye. But it was for the good of the business and all their employees, she reminded herself, and she’d pay the money back. So get up and get over there.

She laid her head down on the desk again. Tomorrow. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she’d think about it tomorrow.

Except the clock was ticking and she couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting until tomorrow. She took a deep breath, stood and strode out of the office.

Chapter Four

No one is perfect. It’s important to remember this when working with family.

—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love

Muriel was in a swimming pool full of melted chocolate, competing in a swim meet, doing the butterfly stroke and trying desperately to catch up with her competition in the other lanes. Waldo stood at one end of the pool holding up a giant silver trophy cup brimming with fudge, and Cecily and Bailey were at the front of the throng, cheering wildly. “Go, Mom! You can do it!” But the chocolate was so thick that no matter how hard she pulled against it, she couldn’t make any progress.

She was halfway across the pool and heavily winded when in swept the Wicked Witch of the West on her broom. The witch wasn’t wearing her usual black garb. Instead, she was in an old-fashioned bathing suit from the early 1900s and she looked suspiciously like Samantha with hazel eyes and long red hair flying out from under her pointy black hat.

“Tsunami! Quick, everybody out of the pool,” cried the witch. She flew out over the water, reached down and yanked Muriel out by her hair. “Mom, you can’t stay here. Mom. Mom!”

“Mom?”

Muriel opened her eyes to see Samantha leaning over her, a hand on her shoulder, her expression anxious. “Are you okay?”

Of course she wasn’t okay. Muriel shoved her hair out of her eyes and sat up. “What time is it?”

“Eleven forty-five.”

Almost noon. Here she was, sleeping away another day.

“Have you eaten?” Samantha asked.

“I’m not hungry, sweetie.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

What did it matter? Muriel waved away the question. She slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom and shut the door on her daughter.

Samantha’s voice followed her. “I’ll make coffee.”

Coffee, ugh. Muriel had always loved a good cup of coffee but her taste buds, like the rest of her, seemed to have given up on life.

She stood at the bathroom counter and stared at her reflection. Beneath those artificially brown curls the face of an old woman looked mournfully back at her. The dark circles under her eyes showed how poorly she was sleeping in spite of all the mattress time she was logging in.

She flipped off the light and left the bathroom. The bed called to her, but the smell of brewing coffee reminded her that Samantha was expecting her in the kitchen. She put on her bathrobe and sat on the edge of the bed, willing herself to get out there. Her body refused to obey.

Finally Samantha entered the room bearing a steaming mug. At the sight of her mother she managed a tentative smile. “How about I draw you a bubble bath and make us an omelet?”

Muriel took the mug. “Is that a hint?” That sounded snippy. Well, she felt snippy.

Samantha’s fair skin glowed like an ember. “No, I just…”

“Go ahead and make yourself something. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” Muriel returned to the bathroom with as much dignity as she could muster. She was too young for her daughter to be telling her what to do.

Although Samantha was right. She needed a bath.

Twenty minutes later she emerged to find her daughter huddled on a stool at the kitchen counter, nursing her own mug of coffee. Muriel joined her and they sat side by side, looking at the empty kitchen.

“I can’t seem to get my feet under me,” Muriel murmured.

“You will,” Samantha said.

And, if her daughter had anything to say about it, the sooner, the better, but all that busyness seemed like a waste of time. Her head suddenly hurt.

“So, how about an omelet?” Samantha coaxed.

Waldo loved a big, hearty breakfast. “It starts the day out right,” he used to say.

There was no right way to start this day. “No, I don’t want anything,” Muriel said. Except to have my husband back.

“Let me at least get you some toast.”

Fine, if it would make her happy. Muriel nodded.

It wasn’t until Samantha had toasted and buttered a piece of rye bread, put it on a plate and set it on the counter that Muriel’s foggy brain made an observation. “You’re not at the office.”

Samantha nudged the plate closer. “Have some toast.”

Muriel took a bite and chewed. She might as well have been chewing sawdust. She pushed the plate aside. “I thought you’d be at the office.”

Once again Samantha inched the plate closer. “Have another bite.”

Again Muriel pushed it away. She narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “Samantha Rose. Why are you here?”

Samantha dropped her gaze to the counter and gnawed her lip. Behind that pretty face lived a will of steel that showed itself in a strong chin always set in determination. Today, though, her daughter looked like she’d collapsed in on herself.

Maternal mode overpowering grief, Muriel reached across the counter and laid a hand on Samantha’s arm. “Tell me,” she commanded even though she didn’t want to hear. Between her daughter and the doctors, she’d been hearing enough miserable news the past few months to last her a lifetime. She shuddered inwardly and braced herself.

Samantha looked up at her, eyes filled with desperation. “I don’t even know how to say this.”

Of the three girls this daughter had never been afraid to tell her mother exactly what she thought. “Just tell me. It can’t top any of the bad news I’ve had in the past month.”

“The bank is calling in its note. If I don’t come up with the money by the end of next month they’ll seize our assets and we’ll lose the business.”

She’d known the company was having trouble, but hearing this, Muriel felt like she’d been knocked over by an avalanche. First that horrible diagnosis, followed by Waldo’s sudden death, now the business. What next?

If she’d stayed in the modest paid-for house where she and Stephen had raised the girls, she and Samantha could have gone to the bank and gotten a home equity loan and solved this problem. But instead, she’d traded up and bought a big, new house to go with her new husband and her new life. Real estate values in the region had fallen and even she knew what that meant—her house wasn’t worth what it once was. And that meant the amount of equity she had to trade on amounted to zilch.

It seemed wrong to ask your daughter, “What are we going to do?” She should’ve had an answer. But she didn’t. So she sat there and stared at Samantha, feeling like the world’s worst mother, willing her brain to become math-friendly.

“I’ve been to the bank,” Samantha said. “They won’t help us. Right now there’s only one thing I can think to do.”

She’d thought of something. Good. Whatever it was, Muriel would support her.

Samantha hesitated, chewing her lip. She obviously wasn’t happy with the solution she’d come up with.

“I’m listening,” Muriel said encouragingly even though she felt an overwhelming urge to run away.

“I hate to ask this, but did Waldo have life insurance?”

Life insurance. Just hearing the words made Muriel’s stomach churn. Waldo was not only dead, his life was reduced to a check. But it was a check they needed. She could use it to help her daughter save the company and maybe pay down this ridiculous mortgage.

Oh, how crass that sounded! Waldo, I’m sorry.

“Mom, I wouldn’t ask if I could think of anything else but I’m out of options,” Samantha was saying. “If you could just lend me enough to catch us up with the bank, I’ll make sure you get repaid as soon as possible.”

She patted her daughter’s arm. “This is our business, honey. I’ll give you the money.”

Samantha’s lower lip trembled and she took a deep breath. “Thanks,” she said with tears in her eyes.

“We’re a family. Family sticks together.” Muriel hugged her.

Samantha wrapped her arms around Muriel like a drowning person would grab a life preserver.

Independent as her daughter was, she still needed her mother, and no matter how much Muriel wanted to sit life out for a good long while, maybe forever, she wasn’t about to abandon her child to fight this battle on her own. “I won’t let us lose this business,” she promised. “Grandma Rose would turn in her grave.”

“So would Daddy.” Samantha pulled away and Muriel saw both relief and guilt on her face. “Thanks, Mom. I’m sorry we’re having to go about things this way.”

She pushed a lock of red hair behind Samantha’s ear. “I’m not. And Waldo would be happy to know he was helping.”

That remark tugged her daughter’s lips down at the corners, and even though Samantha didn’t say it, Muriel could hear her thinking, It’s the least he could do, considering the circumstances.

But she didn’t say it, and for that Muriel was grateful. She held in a thought of her own, too. Yes, Waldo made some mistakes but he wasn’t the one who took out that expansion loan in the first place. Sometimes her daughter forgot that.

“I’ll find the policy and call the insurance company this afternoon,” she promised.

Samantha nodded, still looking uncomfortable. “Thanks.” And then she was all business, ready to recommence fighting the world. “I’d better get back to the office. Call me after you talk to them.”

“I will,” Muriel assured her.

She sent Samantha on her way with a kiss, then stood at the window and watched her run down the walk to her car. For a moment she saw her daughter at eighteen, climbing into the passenger seat next to her father, driving to her summer job in the Sweet Dreams office. “Someday I’m going to run this company,” she’d announced when she was sixteen, “and we’ll be big.”

Such dreams and ambition. “She’s a natural,” Stephen had said.

Muriel sighed. She should have remembered that and left her daughter in charge instead of bringing in Waldo and complicating things. She hadn’t trusted her own judgment or her daughter’s business smarts, and now she realized that had been a mistake. But Samantha had been so young.

As if age had anything to do with business smarts. Muriel herself was living proof that wasn’t true.

Well, it was a new day. Samantha was in charge now and it seemed fitting that Waldo’s life insurance money would allow her to resuscitate Sweet Dreams and take the company to the next level.

Muriel went up to the loft they’d turned into an office and opened the filing cabinet. The files were all jumbled, with manila folders stuck in haphazardly rather than in alphabetical order. She finally found the one marked Life Insurance and pulled it out, only to discover it contained papers on the house.

Panic began to simmer inside her. She set the file on the cabinet and checked the house file, thinking maybe Waldo had mixed things up. No life insurance policy. She moved to the desk, pawing through the scattered papers piled on top. A past-due notice for Waldo’s Beemer payment made her swallow hard but didn’t distract her from her search. It had to be here somewhere.

Three hours and two more cups of coffee later, she found a letter from the insurance company. She picked it up and began to read.

Words jumped out and slapped her. Due to nonpayment…policy…canceled.

There had to be some mistake. She’d call the insurance company first thing in the morning and straighten this all out.

Oh, Lord, please let there be some mistake.

But there wasn’t. No matter how many superiors Muriel spoke to the following morning, no matter how much she pleaded, the answer was always the same: “We’re sorry, but we can’t help you.”

And now she had to call the office and say the same words to her daughter. She stared at the phone and wished she could just go back to bed.

Chapter Five

If you can’t depend on your family in your time of need, who can you depend on?

—Muriel Sterling, When Family Matters

Samantha sat at her desk, gnawing her fingernails while staring out the office window at the Wenatchee River. The sun was out today and the river was a sparkling sapphire-blue, but she could barely see it. Her view was eclipsed by the vision of the end of life as she knew it. Sweet Dreams was going to be history. The possibility of using Waldo’s life insurance money had been her last hope. What was going to happen to her employees? What was going to happen to Mom without that extra income? How could she fix this mess?

Maybe another bank would lend her money. Then she could use that to pay off Cascade Mutual. She made a couple of calls to test the water. The water was frigid. Another fingernail went bye-bye.

Her cell phone started playing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Bailey.

She forced herself to answer even though she didn’t want to. She’d already talked to Cecily, who’d at least had the decency to let her be depressed. Bailey, the family cheerleader, would be calling to pump her up. And she didn’t want to be pumped up, damn it all, she wanted to be pissed. Pissed, pissed, pissed!

“I’m here,” she snarled.

“Well, of course. Where else would you be?” Bailey replied reasonably. “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t in the office busy saving the company.”

“I’m not busy saving the company. I’m busy…” What was she busy doing? Oh, yeah, feeling sorry for herself and doing a darned good job of it, too.

“Cecily told me about the bank. Are you okay?”

“No.”

There was silence on the other end and she could just see her baby sister biting her lip, considering what to say next. “I’m sorry, Sammy,” she finally said. “I feel like we’re leaving you holding a big, stinky mess up there.”

Samantha rubbed her aching forehead. “At the rate we’re going I won’t be holding it much longer.” And then what would she do? Worse, what would Mom do? She wasn’t exactly making a fortune as a writer. Cecily would have to find millionaires for both of them.

“But you can’t let Sweet Dreams go out of the family,” Bailey said. “That would just be wrong, Sammy.”

Sometimes Samantha felt it was wrong that she was the only one of the sisters who’d stayed in Icicle Falls to keep Willy Wonka Land going. Here she was, like Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Or the Last of the Mohicans. Or…something.

“Do you have any ideas for how to save the company?”

Offer to sleep with Blake Preston in exchange for making an exception to bank policy. Oh, cute. Where had that come from? No place good. “No,” Samantha said. But there had to be something they could do. Why couldn’t she think of anything? She’d never lacked for ideas in the past, so where was all that brilliant inspiration now? Obviously, her idea factory had been shut down.

“We need a family brainstorming session,” Bailey said firmly.

If she couldn’t think of anything, what did Bailey suppose the rest of them were going to come up with? “Listen,” she began.

Bailey cut her off. “I know you think nobody can run the company like you, but we’re all pretty creative.”

There was no denying that. Samantha looked at the shredded nails on her left hand and decided manicures were overrated.

“I’m calling Cec,” Bailey said decisively. “I’ll go over to her place tonight and we’ll Skype you at Mom’s at seven.”

By seven all Samantha wanted was to be in her condo, escaping into a computer game or a movie on TV with Nibs curled up in her lap. “I don’t think—” she began.

“Come on now, don’t balk. Let’s at least give it a try.”

Her baby sister would stay on the phone and harass her until she caved. Might as well cave now and be done with it, she told herself. “All right. Seven tonight.”

“Good,” Bailey said in a tone of voice that sounded as though they’d already accomplished something.

* * *

Cecily stared in surprise at the buxom blonde in the low-cut top and overdone jewelry sitting on the other side of her desk, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Liza and Brad should have been a perfect match. He wanted a woman with boobs the size of life rafts and she wanted a man with a deep well of money to support her Rodeo Drive spending habit. Brad not only had money, he was good-looking to boot, another requirement of Liza’s, and now Liza was saying she didn’t want to see him again? Seriously?

“So you didn’t hit it off?” Cecily asked.

“We should have. He took me to Melisse, and the food was to die for. We both love great food.”

“Common interests are important,” Cecily said. They could have happily eaten their way through life while Liza ate her way through Brad’s bank account.

“Then he said he liked my hair.”

“Compliments, that’s good.”

Liza made a face. “Oh, yeah? Not when he says it’s the same color as his mother’s hair and then he starts talking about her.”

“Maybe he thought you’d like his mother?”

“Not by the time he was done. I swear it was like there were three of us on that date. And she lives with him. He’s forty and he lives with his mother? Sheesh. I can’t believe you don’t screen your guys better.”

“Well…” Cecily stumbled to a halt. She wasn’t even sure what to say to that. She didn’t have a place on her forms to check off mama’s boy. “I’m sorry, Liza. I thought he’d be perfect.”

“Well, he wasn’t. You’ve got to do better.”

That might not be so easy, considering the fact that Liza had tried to sucker the last two guys she’d gone out with into taking her shopping on the second date. “I’ll try,” Cecily said. “But you have to remember not to ask these guys to buy clothes for you when you’ve barely started dating them. It makes them think that’s all you want out of the relationship.”

Liza scowled at her. “Of course that’s not all I want. What do I look like, a hooker?”

Actually, yes, and not a very high-class one. “No, no,” Cecily said quickly. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your perfect match.”

“I hope so. I mean, I could go to someone else, you know.”

The Millionaire Matchmaker on TV? Cecily smiled the diplomatic smile that had always stood her in good stead. “Of course, I want you to be happy.” The rest of that sentence should have gone something like, “And I’m going to do everything in my power to find the perfect guy for you.” But the rest of the sentence never got out of her mouth. Instead, she discovered she had an evil twin, and the evil twin said, “So if that’s how you feel, then you should trot those Jimmy Choos somewhere else and see if they can find you a man who’s into gold diggers.” Oh, dear God, had she just said that?

Liza obviously couldn’t believe she had. Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

Oh, boy. “I don’t think I can help you,” Cecily said simply. And then the evil twin added, “And I don’t think I want to.”

Liza’s eyes flashed. “I want my money back!”

Good luck with that, thought Cecily. That money was long gone, just like her patience. “You got your money’s worth. I’ve matched you up with six eligible men. It’s not my fault you blew it.”

Liza glared at her. “Fine. I’m telling all my friends never to come to you. Ever!” And with that, she grabbed her Kate Spade bag and teetered out of the office on her three-inch heels.

Cecily ran a hand through her hair. This was abysmal. Not losing Liza as a client—she’d had a feeling all along that she wouldn’t be able to help the woman. No, it was the way she’d reacted to Liza’s threat—so tacky, so unprofessional. What was wrong with her? She was burned out, plain and simple.

She told Willow, her secretary, to hold her calls and locked herself in her office with a cup of chamomile tea, but the tea didn’t make her feel any better. She tossed out the remains and went back to her emails. And with each new one she opened, she kept asking herself, What are you doing here?

Good question.

* * *

Samantha was about to leave the office when her mother called to ask how she was doing.

“I haven’t slit my wrists yet,” Samantha reassured her.

“Don’t even joke about things like that,” Mom scolded. “I just talked to Cecily. It sounds like we’re set for a brainstorming session tonight and I was wondering if I should make dinner.”

While Samantha always preferred other people’s cooking, especially her mother’s, the idea of sitting across the table from Mom after everything that had happened, and now this latest development—she couldn’t face it. “I’ve got a million things to do before we Skype.” Please don’t ask what. “Can I take a rain check?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “But let me send some food home with you after. I’m up to my nose in casseroles.”

Free food. That would work. And stuffing herself with Mrs. Nilsen’s triple-threat mac and cheese was a step above medicating her pain with goodies from their gift shop or chewing off what few fingernails she had left.

She pulled up in the driveway at 6:55, turned off the ignition and sighed. It was wrong not to want to spend one-on-one time with her mother. She loved her mother. But right now she felt a big, lumpy wall between them, a misshapen, awkward pile of resentment, guilt and who knew what else, that she wasn’t sure how to scale. Mom was trying, though, God bless her. Which, of course, made Samantha feel all the more guilty.

Learning that Waldo had no life insurance hadn’t helped. Mom had felt awful when she called with the bad news and Samantha had felt numb. But not so numb that she couldn’t exclaim, “How could he have been so irresponsible? My God! First the business and now this.”

“Let’s not panic,” Mom had advised.

“Mom,” Samantha had said sternly, “we’re in a burning building and the fire department is on strike. What do you expect me to do?”

“We’ll think of something,” Mom had assured her.

Easy for her mother, the queen of clueless, to say. She knew nothing about business or finance. “You’re right,” Samantha had lied, trying to make up for her gaffe. “I’d better go.” Before I explode.

After she hung up she’d felt awful. If there was an award for the most insensitive daughter, she’d win it hands down.

Now she made her way up the walk, slo-o-owly, and then let herself in, hoping to hear Mom’s voice drifting down from the loft as she talked to Cecily and Bailey on the computer. Instead, she found her mother rooted in her favorite yellow leather chair, nursing a cup of chocolate-mint tea. The aroma drifted across the room to greet her.

“I have a pot of tea on the counter,” Mom said as Samantha bent to kiss her cheek, “and Pat brought over white-chocolate raspberry brownies. Vitamin C,” she added, referring to the family joke that chocolate was the equivalent of vitamins.

At the rate Samantha was going, she’d wind up overdosing on chocolate. She moved to the counter, poured herself some tea and took a brownie. Just one. She’d make this the last fattening thing she ate for the rest of her life. Okay, for the rest of the month. The week. The night, anyway.

“How are you feeling?” Mom asked.

Like French royalty about to face the guillotine. Samantha shrugged. “I’ve been better.”

Her mother’s face was a picture of sympathy and regret. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

That made two of them. “Mom, about this morning. I’m sorry I snapped at you.” Daughters were supposed to be a comfort to their mother. She was about as comforting as a kick in the shins.

Mom waved away the apology. “Don’t give it another thought. I know you’re under a lot of stress.”

Stress, the all-American excuse for bad behavior. Could she go back to the bank and try that one out on Blake Preston?

Mom gave her a motherly pat on the shoulder. “Somehow this will all work out, sweetie.”

Samantha had to find a way to make that prediction come true. The weight of responsibility on her shoulders felt like twin elephants. How was she going to get them out of this mess? Panic!

No, no. No panicking. Stay calm and think.

“So they haven’t called yet?” she asked, stating the obvious. Suddenly she was eager to talk to her sisters. Even though there was nothing they could do to help, a big dose of moral support would be good.

“Not yet,” Mom said. “I was just about to go up to the loft. We can start talking to Cecily. You know how to do this Skype thing, right? Waldo always…” Mom’s sentence trailed off.

Samantha simply nodded and led the way upstairs. At first it looked like Mom had done some serious cleaning in the office, but on closer examination Samantha realized her mother had only stacked all of Waldo’s paperwork in neat piles.

“I’m working through your stepfather’s papers,” Mom said as she sat down and booted up the computer.

“I can help you with that,” Samantha offered, pulling up a chair next to her and clicking on the Skype icon.

“It can wait,” Mom said. “You’ve got enough on your plate.”

Not as much as Mom had. Yes, Samantha was feeling responsible for keeping the company going, but Mom was coping with the loss of a husband and probably her house, on top of all this trouble with Sweet Dreams. All the sparkle had drained out of her and she looked like a zombie with her eyes bloodshot from crying. Samantha, with her ill-considered outbursts, wasn’t helping.

Their call went through and Cecily appeared on the screen. She was perched on a brown microfiber love seat in her living room, looking comfy in sweatpants and an old sweater, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. On the wall behind her Samantha could see Mom’s 1979 Moskowitz print that Cecily had taken with her when she’d moved to L.A. It depicted three pastel-colored ostriches, one with its head in the sand, two staring out at the world with perplexed expressions. Rather symbolic of most of the women in her family if you asked Samantha. Not that anyone had.

“Bailey isn’t here yet,” Cecily told them. “She called to say she’s running late.”

“What a surprise,” Samantha murmured.

“Baby of the family. What can we say?” Cecily said. She widened her eyes. “Is that a brownie you’re eating?”

Samantha stuffed the last of her brownie in her mouth. “Mmm.”

Cecily made a face. “Unfair.”

Kind of like her being up here all by herself, worrying about Mom and the business. Then she reminded herself that she’d been the stupid martyr who insisted her sisters return to their lives in L.A.

“But better your waist than mine,” Cecily taunted.

“By the time everyone in Icicle Falls is done bringing food we’ll have no waists. We’ll be tree trunks,” Mom predicted. “Still, it’s very thoughtful.”

And it’s free, Samantha thought. Right now free was good, as her savings account was on the verge of flatlining.

“So, have you come up with any ideas for how to get the money we need?” asked Cecily.

The elephants sitting on Samantha’s shoulders settled in for a nice, long stay. “Other than robbing the bank, no.”

“I still think I should take out a loan,” Cecily said. “Maybe I could get a home equity loan on my condo.”

“Nice try, but I told you, no loans,” Samantha insisted. “This family isn’t going any deeper into debt.” Mom being upside down on her house was bad enough. They didn’t need to put her sister in the same position.

Cecily gave a fatalistic shrug. “You know, I always thought I was pretty good at thinking outside the box, but I’ve got to admit that so far I’m at a loss. Other than matching you up with a rich man,” she teased Samantha.

“Meeting a nice man, there’s an idea,” Mom said, perfectly happy to take her seriously. “Maybe someone who’d be willing to make you a personal loan.”

“No problem,” Samantha said irritably. “Let’s run down to the rich-guy mart and pick up a sucker.”

“We wouldn’t have any luck, anyway,” Cecily said. “Your boobs aren’t big enough.”

Now Mom was looking thoughtful. “What’s the new bank manager like?”

“He’s no Arnie,” Samantha said bitterly. An image of Blake Preston with his broad shoulders and superhero chin came running into her mind, all dressed up in his football regalia. Samantha benched it.

“Still, surely he could be of some help,” Mom said.

Samantha shook her head. “I’ve met him. He’s useless.”

“Maybe you didn’t get off on the right foot,” Mom persisted.

If snatching back the bribe she’d brought him counted, no, they hadn’t. Samantha shot her sister a look that warned bodily harm if Cecily ratted her out to Mom and said, “Trust me, he won’t be any help. A man can’t always fix things,” she couldn’t keep from adding.

Her mother heaved a sigh. “I wish your father was alive. He’d know what to do.”

“If Dad was alive we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place,” Samantha said, and then wanted to bite off her tongue. Just shoot me now, she thought, watching her mother’s shoulders stiffen. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she muttered. Except she had and they both knew it.

“It’s okay,” her mother said even though they both knew it wasn’t.

Now Samantha could hear Bailey’s voice in the background. A moment later her youngest sister appeared on the screen, plopping onto the love seat next to Cecily and pulling off a red leather jacket, probably a consignment store find. Ever since the company’s profits had evaporated they’d all been shopping secondhand. Or, in Samantha’s case, not shopping at all.

“So what have you guys come up with?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Samantha said. This was going to be a big waste of time.

“Well, I was thinking about something on the way over,” Bailey told them. “What about some kind of fundraiser? You know, with a big thermometer so people could see how much money we’ve raised.”

“No,” Samantha said. “Perception is important in business and the last thing we want is to announce to the whole world that we’re going under.”

“But we are going under,” Bailey pointed out.

“No thermometers,” Samantha said sternly.

Bailey frowned and fell back against the couch cushions, deflated.

“Speaking of perception,” Cecily said, “does anybody know how to contact Mimi LeGrande? If she featured Sweet Dreams on a show, we’d be golden.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? Mimi LeGrande hosted the Food Network’s brand-new hit show All Things Chocolate. There wasn’t a bakery or chocolatier in the country who didn’t dream of getting included in one of her shows. If she were to give them a nod, orders would pour in from foodies and chocoholics, and their future would be secure.

“I heard she lives here. I could ask around,” Bailey offered. “There’s got to be someone who knows her.”

“That would be great,” Samantha said. Heck, it would be more than great. It would be a miracle. “But it’s a long shot. I think we need a more immediate plan.” There had to be one. Why wasn’t she seeing it?

Silence reigned for a full five minutes until Cecily said, “You know, our baby sis could be on to something.”

“Oh, not you, too,” Samantha groaned.

“What if we did come up with some sort of event to bring in money for the business?”

“A chocolate dinner?” Bailey suggested, coming back to life. “Every course could use chocolate. And we could do it at Zelda’s.”

“Guys, I appreciate the thought,” Samantha said, “but a dinner wouldn’t even come close to raising the kind of money we need.” Maybe they were on the right track, though. “Let’s think on a grander scale.”

“I did a chocolate tour in Seattle once,” Bailey said.

“A chocolate tour, a chocolate weekend,” Samantha mused. Maybe they could pull that off. They could have a dinner and a chocolate high tea at Olivia’s B and B. But anything they got from that would only be a drop in the bucket. “A chocolate festival.” Too bad they didn’t have more time. Festivals brought in a lot of people and a lot of money.

“Now, that’s brilliant!” Cecily exclaimed.

“Brilliant but not practical,” Samantha said. “We need that money in six and a half weeks. It would take six months to plan something on such a grand scale.”

“Then let’s plan on a baby grand scale,” Bailey said. “We can have it the weekend before Valentine’s Day when people are feeling romantic and buying candy.”

Samantha shook her head regretfully. “There isn’t time. It’s a lot to plan, and you have to promote it.”

“If you had people helping, you could do it,” Bailey insisted. “And with the internet and social media you can promote things fast now.”

“It’s a great idea,” Cecily said.

Was her entire family certifiably insane?

Suddenly she could envision Icicle Falls buzzing with throngs of visitors all on a chocolate high. Something like this wouldn’t just help their company, it would help the whole town.

Was she insane, too?

“Let’s do it,” Bailey said eagerly.

What was with this let’s do it stuff? They were down there and she was up here. On her own.

“We can sponser a bunch of events, maybe have some sort of contest,” Bailey continued. “I couldn’t come up till just before, but I could help with planning over the phone and on email in between catering jobs.”

“Actually, I can come up right away,” Cecily said.

“You’ve got a business to run,” Samantha protested.

“Things are quiet right now. I’ve got the time.”

Quiet? What did that mean? Wasn’t her dating service doing well?

Cecily tended to keep things to herself. When she had a crisis they never heard about it until it was long over.

Still, this worried Samantha. “Not that I don’t want you,” she said, “but you can’t just up and leave your business for several weeks.”

Cecily put on what Samantha thought of as her poker face; her expression gave nothing away. “I’m closing the business. It’s a long story,” she added before Samantha could press her for details. “Anyway, I’ve had all the sun I can take. I need seasons. I can rent out my condo, and I bet Charley would let me have a job waiting tables at Zelda’s a couple of nights a week. That would leave me free during the day to work on the festival with you guys. Mom, can I stay with you?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “But I think you girls need to figure out a few more things first, like where we’d hold this festival.”

“All over town.” Bailey almost whacked Cecily in the nose with her sweeping hand gesture.

“I bet we could get all the B and Bs to participate and offer some special rates,” Samantha said thoughtfully. “No one has full occupancy these days, so maybe some of them would offer a special discount for that weekend.”

“Oh, and the restaurants can feature special chocolate desserts,” Bailey said.

“We could award a plaque to the one that comes up with the most creative dessert, using our candy, of course,” Cecily suggested. “Bragging rights for them, profit for us.”

“I love it,” Samantha said. This scheme was looking better by the minute.

Bailey nodded eagerly. “Our local artists can set up booths in the park along Center Street. Heck, we can all have food booths over on Alpine like we do on the Fourth of July.”

“Girls, this all sounds lovely, but you have to have time to get people on board,” Mom said.

“Since when isn’t the Icicle Falls Chamber of Commerce on board with anything that brings in tourist business?” Samantha argued. “I could work that angle.”

“Me, too,” said Bailey. “I can phone people from here. Oh, this could be really big. We can hand out samples, give tours of the factory, all kinds of cool stuff.”

“But there’s the matter of permits,” Samantha said, coming down to earth with a thud. “We can’t just decide to have a festival without getting permits for the sale of food and alcohol. And we need a special-event permit that all the departments sign off on. It takes time for all that to make the rounds in city hall.”

“But if it’s good for Icicle Falls I bet you can find someone to move the process along,” Cecily said.

Hmm. Her sister had a point there.

“Let’s try it, anyway,” Bailey urged. “Think of all the chocolate-lovers we can lure up here. Oooh, and we could have a chocolate ball,” she added dreamily. “I can see it now, an old-fashioned masked ball where everyone dresses up.”

“And have that chocolate dinner before,” Cecily put in.

“We can sponsor the dinner and the ball and sell hot chocolate and truffles in a booth.” Bailey was beaming now, on fire with a million ideas.

If they could manage to pull off even some of them…Samantha felt the fire catching in her, too. “We’d need to advertise in the Seattle papers, set up a website.” She grabbed a piece of paper from Waldo’s desk and began scribbling notes to herself.

“That will cost money,” Mom pointed out. “Girls, I just don’t think we can raise what we need by sponsoring something like this. Sponsoring, by its very nature, involves cost.”

Now that they were going down the tubes she was deciding to grow a head for business? “Everything involves cost,” Samantha argued.

But Mom had a point. This whole thing was a huge gamble and it could bomb big-time.

What did it matter, though, if the bank was going to take the business, anyway? Chances were slim that they’d even come close to making enough money to get the bank off their backs—but if they did nothing their chances went from slim to none. And maybe they could at least raise enough to allow her to renegotiate with the bank. If she came in with a check…

“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” Cecily said.

Samantha put a lot of stock in her sister’s instincts. “Then let’s do it. What have we got to lose?”

Their business, of course. And maybe their sanity.

Oh, wait, trying to pull off something this big in such a short time—they’d already lost their sanity. So what the heck. Sweet Dreams Chocolates was about to sponsor a chocolate festival.

Chapter Six

The man of your dreams is the one who shares your dreams.

—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love

After their family conference call, Samantha’s mother loaded her up with chicken casserole, tuna surprise and brownies, gave her an encouraging hug and then sent her home feeling slightly ill. She hoped the queasiness was due to all the sugar she’d been consuming lately and not fear of failure.

She went to bed half hoping she could save the day by dreaming up a fabulous chocolate candy recipe just like Great-grandma Rose had done all those years ago.

Could she, though? No-o-o. Instead of dreaming up a new recipe that would put them on the map, she spent her REM sleep hours running from King Kong–size candy-bar monsters that chased her all over town, trying to squash her with their big, flat feet. Finally three of them cornered her right in front of the bank.

“Get her,” growled one, and raised a giant foot.

“No,” she cried. “I’ll do anything. Anything!”

So far in her dream she’d appeared to be the last living soul in Icicle Falls but suddenly the bank door opened and Blake Preston stood in the doorway dressed in leopard-print boxers. “Did you say you’d do anything?” he asked.

“Anything,” she panted. He took her by the arm and pulled her inside the bank.

There she saw that all the desks had been replaced with round beds draped in pink satin bedspreads and the ceiling was one gigantic mirror. In another corner sat a hot tub, bubbling with chocolate.

Blake slipped an arm around her waist. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he whispered. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and nibbled her earlobe, turning her insides gooey. “Why don’t you lose that dress and join me in the hot tub?”

“Will you save me from the monsters?” she asked him.

“Of course. That’s what men are for, isn’t it? Look how Waldo saved your mother.”

“Aack.” She covered her face with her hands.

Blake started chuckling and she glanced up to see that he’d put on some sort of Dracula cape and sprouted fangs. And they were dripping chocolate.

She let out a shriek and ran for the door. But then she caught sight of a big, brown monster eye peering in at her and dashed blindly in the other direction with Blake in hot pursuit, his cape flying out behind him.

“Bwa-ha-ha. You know you want me,” he cackled.

“I want to save my company!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Sign something that guarantees you’ll save my company.”

“First let’s seal the deal,” he called as he chased her around a bed. “Come on, Samantha, you know you want to.”

“I shouldn’t do this,” she said, and hesitated, which gave him time to get around the bed and catch her. “It’s all right,” he murmured as he kissed her neck. “Trust me.”

Next thing she knew he was helping her strip off her little black dress. And lo and behold, she was wearing leopard-print panties and a matching bra.

“Now, sign this,” he said, and produced some sort of contract and a pen shaped like a licorice stick. Samantha took it and scrawled her name across the bottom of the document. “What did I just sign?”

Blake scooped her up in his arms and smiled at her. “You signed your life away, baby. You sold your company to Madame C.”

The cheap chocolate company in Seattle? “No!” she protested, and struggled to get free.

“And now nobody needs you anymore.” With her still squirming in his arms, he flew over to the hot tub and dropped her in. “Sayonara, sweet cheeks,” he said, and began pushing her head down.

She wakened just before she drowned, sitting up with a jerk and panting, covered in sweat. What kind of sick subconscious did she have, anyway? She pushed her hair out of her eyes and lay back down with a whimper. Nibs slowly made his way across the bed to investigate and she drew him close.

“Okay, it was only a dream,” she told herself. And one that had convinced her that no matter how bad things got, she didn’t want to end it all by drowning herself in chocolate.

* * *

Blake was picking up his midmorning Americano at Bavarian Brews when he spotted Samantha Sterling coming through the door. She wore a short, faux-fur-trimmed jacket over jeans that hugged her thighs and tall black boots—typical Icicle Falls business casual. Except this woman made business casual look erotic and he had to beat down a surge of red-hot lust. The memory of her losing her temper at him doused any remaining embers—until an unbidden thought fueled a fresh fire, suggesting that with so much passion she’d be a real firecracker in bed.

She saw him and her cheeks, already rosy from the cold, deepened to red. She shot a sidelong glance at the door but then seemed to think the better of turning tail and running, instead donned a polite mask and moved toward the order counter. He smiled at her, determined to meet her halfway. They lived in the same town. Might as well manage a difficult situation civilly.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice as stiff as her smile.

He held up his cup. “It is—now that I’ve got my coffee.”

She nodded. “I’m running on empty myself.”

“Can I buy you something?”

She blushed again and dropped her gaze to his chest. “No, thanks. That is—” she cleared her throat “—about the other day.”

This was awkward. He held up a hand. “Consider it forgotten.”

Now she did look at him. She had great eyes. And then there was her mouth. And other parts of her.

“It was very unprofessional of me,” she said, “and I’m not normally like that.”

“I’m sure you’re not,” he agreed. “And believe me, this isn’t any more fun for the bank than it is for you.”

A delicate eyebrow cocked, turning her earnest expression into something a little more cynical. “It hurts you more than it does me?”

“Well, sort of.” That had sounded stupid and made him look like a real jerk. This wasn’t going well. “I don’t like having to be the bad guy,” he said. Boy, there was an understatement. Why, of all the business choices in the world, had he chosen banking?

Oh, yeah, he’d wanted to help people fix their money problems, make their dreams come true, blah, blah. Talk about naive. Banks didn’t cure financial stupidity. They profited from it. He was no hero. He was a profiteer.

“Then don’t be a bad guy,” she urged. “Work with us.”

She looked so helpless, so desperate. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her he’d come up with some way to save her.

Wait a minute. What was he thinking? He wasn’t, of course. Women like this one, they made a man’s brain melt. He gave himself a stern reminder that Samantha Sterling wasn’t the only person in town with financial needs. He had employees and other bank customers depending on him.

None of his other customers looked like this one.

Oh, no. He wasn’t about to follow old Arnie right over the cliff and take the bank with him. Yes, legions of men did dumb things for women. They spent money they didn’t have on women, stole for them, even committed murder for them. He didn’t have to join the legions.

“We’re making plans for something that could benefit not only Sweet Dreams but the whole town,” Samantha said earnestly.

There. She’d be fine. He’d known it all along.

This was a town full of fighters. It had been ever since the shutdown of the lumber mill and the relocation of the railroad left Icicle Falls in bad straits during the Depression. It’d been almost a ghost town by the fifties, but the people of Icicle Falls had self-administered CPR and spent the early sixties transforming their town into an Alpine village and haven for skiers. Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company was one of their success stories, weathering the hard times and giving the town a source of pride, and how it was founded had become a local legend. Like the other residents of Icicle Falls, Samantha Sterling was a fighter. She’d pull out of this.

“If we could have a little more time,” she added.

That again. So much for the false rosy picture he’d been painting. His morning coffee began churning up acid in his gut. “I wish I could,” he said. And he did. No lie.

There went the eyebrow once more. “Do you?”

Yes, damn it. But what was he supposed to do, rob the bank for her? Did he look like a money tree with hundred-dollar bills sprouting out of his ears? “Like I said before—”

“I don’t think I want to hear what you said before,” she snapped. “It was depressing the first time around.”

In under a minute she’d reduced him from six feet two to twelve inches, the world’s smallest man with the world’s smallest heart. “If there’s any other way I can help,” he began.

“You’re helping enough,” she said coldly, and marched off to the order counter, her back stiff.

But not her tush. How did women manage to walk like that? Honky-tonk badonkadonk, mmm-mmm.

Nice, Preston, he scolded himself. You’re about to take her business and you’re thinking about her butt. What kind of bastard did that make him? He supposed his ex-girlfriend would be glad to tell him.

There had been a superficial relationship that was doomed from the start. After they broke up he’d vowed to be more cautious and not let his common sense get anesthetized by a pretty face. Or a nice tush.

Talk about doomed relationships… Samantha Sterling is not for you. Still…that didn’t mean he couldn’t step back and analyze her situation once again and maybe come to a new conclusion. Really, was the bank wise to be so hard-nosed to a business that played a vital part in the local economy?

He tossed his coffee and stepped out into the cold. Instead of returning to the bank he went down to Riverfront Park. With the exception of a couple of brave walkers the footpath was deserted. He took out his cell and dialed Darren Short, his district manager, all the while telling himself that he was not following Arnie over the cliff.

“Blake, how’s it going?” Darren greeted him. “Are you settling in?”

“Well enough,” Blake said. “But now that I’m here I’m getting a bigger picture than we had on paper.”

“Oh?” Now Darren sounded cautious.

“Look, I think we need to reevaluate a few of these loans, especially the one to Sweet Dreams Chocolates.”

“Don’t go soft on me now,” Darren said. “You’re up there to stop the hemorrhaging.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t let me down. You’re our wunderkind and we’re depending on you to turn that branch around and make it an asset for Cascade Mutual. Hell, the people who work up there are depending on you, too.”

“I have every intention of doing that, but—”

Darren cut him off. “Good. I stuck my neck out for you. Don’t make me regret it.”

“Don’t worry, I’m doing my job,” Blake said. “But part of that job involves evaluating the situation and—”

Darren cut him off again with a brusque, “It’s been evaluated and I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of bank policy—to which you’ve already made an exception.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Blake said through gritted teeth.

“I’m glad to hear it. You can give me a full report when we meet on Friday.”

“I will.” In fact, Darren was going to get a much fuller report than he expected. One way or another Blake was now determined to make his boss see reason. He had to. He couldn’t take living the rest of his life as the world’s smallest man.

* * *

Samantha had been looking forward to a caramel latte all morning, but once she had it she took no more than two sips before throwing it out. She started back to the office but changed direction at the last minute, instead walking over to Gingerbread Haus, owned by her business buddy Cassandra Wilkes.

Between her visits to the bakery, and Cass’s visits to Sweet Dreams it was inevitable that the women would become friends. In addition to a love of food and a passion for business, they also seemed to share a common snark bone.

Cass was a single mom, now in her early forties, with three children. She’d come to town a bitter thirty-four-year-old divorcée with barely a penny to her name and went to work for Dot Morrison, who owned the Breakfast Haus restaurant. Dot had lent her the money to start her fantasyland bakery seven years ago and Cass had taken the money and run as fast as she could for success. She’d never looked back.

Samantha opened the door and was greeted with a rush of warm air carrying the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. From behind the glass counter gingerbread cookies in every imaginable shape beckoned. Cream puff swans swam inside a refrigerator display case, along with German-style kuchen loaded with whipped cream. A huge gingerbread castle perched atop the counter and the shelves behind it displayed other examples of Cass’s creativity.

Today she was in the kitchen, covered in flour and rolling out cookie dough for sugar cookie pizzas, but when she saw Samantha standing at the counter talking to her oldest daughter, twenty-year-old Danielle, she washed her hands, slipped off her apron and decided to take a coffee break.

Cass wasn’t a bad-looking woman in spite of the fact that she tried her best to look bad. She never bothered with makeup and when her dark hair wasn’t in a net it was pulled into a sloppy bun. She was thirty pounds overweight and proud of it, and she rarely dressed up beyond jeans and a sweatshirt or T-shirt. But it was probably more her attitude than her looks that kept her single. Where something about Muriel said, “Call me,” Cass sent out signals that said, “Don’t even think about it.”

Now she regarded Samantha with that penetrating gaze of hers and said, “Okay, who do you want to kill today?”

Samantha couldn’t help smiling at her perceptiveness. “Not my mother and not myself.”

“That’s a step in the right direction,” Cass said as they settled at a corner table with some cake pops.

“But maybe the new bank manager.”

“I didn’t get to the open house but I was in making a deposit this morning and saw our hometown boy.” Cass shook her head and smiled. “I’ve gotta say, even though my ideal man is made of gingerbread, this one brought my hormones back to life for a minute there.”

“I always knew you were a cougar,” Samantha teased.

“So have you been in to talk to him about helping you sort out your Waldo mess?”

Cass and Charley were the only ones who knew Samantha had been struggling with the business but she hadn’t told either of them just how desperate the struggle was. “He won’t be any help,” she said, and left it at that.

Cass shook her head. “The man must have a heart of stone and gonads of dough.”

“That about covers it. We’re going to try and find some other ways to fix the business. My mom and sisters and I were kicking around something last night and I want to get your impression.” Cass was an astute businesswoman. If she was in their corner, that would help sell other members of the Chamber of Commerce on the idea.

She sat back and slung an elbow over the back of her chair. “Okay,” she said, her voice noncommittal.

“We’re thinking of sponsoring a chocolate festival.”

Cass nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds interesting. Tell me more.”

And so Samantha did, and as she talked, Cass’s skeptical body language changed. She leaned forward, arms on the table, listening intently. “You know, this could be good,” she said at last.

“Do you think it could work?”

“Why not? We’re always trying to find new ways to bring visitors to town. When were you hoping to do it? You have to make sure you don’t eclipse anything that’s already in place.”

“Next month.”

Cass blinked and fell back against her chair. “Next month?”

“I realize it’s kind of a rush job.” That was the understatement of the century.

“Kind of?” Cass raised both eyebrows. “You know how long it takes to plan something like this?”

Samantha slumped in her seat. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it? I knew it.” She’d been deluding herself—which was exactly what crazy people did.

“I didn’t say that, but damn.”

“We could start small,” Samantha ventured.

“Why February?”

“I need a ton of money by the end of next month. I’m out of options, Cass.” It was painful to have to say it out loud and Samantha found herself blinking back tears.

“Not necessarily. You have friends in this town.”

Samantha shook her head. “I don’t have enough friends for what I owe. Anyway, I wouldn’t do that to my friends. If the bank could have worked with me…” There was no sense completing that sentence.

“Okay, so when next month?”

“We’d like to have it the weekend before Valentine’s Day.”

Cass nodded slowly. “A chocolate festival the weekend before Valentine’s Day. Perfect timing. You should be able to lure lots of couples up here for that. Good for the B and Bs, restaurants, wineries. Bakeries,” she added with a grin.

“So, if we didn’t go too wild, could we pull it off?”

Cass shrugged. “I say give it a shot. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

Except her business, and she wasn’t letting go of that without a fight.

Cass returned to work and Samantha hurried back to the office, a woman ready to wage war.

Elena looked at her uneasily. “I was getting worried. Where’ve you been?”

“Out getting inspired. I need you to look up festivals on the internet and print out everything you can find.”

“Okay,” Elena said. “But—”

“And call Luke and tell him to plan to triple production on our mint chocolate hearts.”

“What in the world is going on?”

“We are about to sponsor Icicle Falls first annual chocolate festival,” Samantha said, and then marched into her office, a general about to form her battle plan and conquer the world. Or at least the bank.

Chapter Seven

A positive attitude in you inspires a positive attitude in others.

—Muriel Sterling, When Family Matters

Wednesday morning found the members of the Icicle Falls Chamber of Commerce assembled in the banquet room of Dot Morrison’s Breakfast Haus.

“Do you want me to bring up the idea of the festival?” Cass asked Samantha.

“I appreciate the offer, but no.” It would be nice if someone would just take the reins and gallop them off into the sunset (or over the cliff) but Samantha knew she had to do this herself. Her glance sneaked to the far end of the table, where Blake Preston sat talking with Ed York, who owned D’Vine Wines. Would he weigh in and advise everyone present not to listen to a woman whose business was in ruins?

Don’t be ridiculous, she scolded herself. It was in the bank’s best interest for her to succeed. Otherwise, they’d have a chocolate company on their hands, and what would the bank do with a chocolate company?

“Just remember to stress that we’ll all benefit from this,” said Charley, whom she’d filled in on their way to the meeting. “We need to figure out how to make Icicle Falls a tourist destination all year long, snow or no snow.”

Samantha nodded and pushed her plate away. What little she’d eaten of her Belgian waffle was lying in her stomach like a brick.

Another fifteen minutes of small talk and Ed brought the meeting to order. There was much to discuss, like how to encourage everyone to put out hanging baskets and window boxes full of flowers come spring so they could keep their Alpine village theme consistent throughout town.

During this discussion several of the women present cast scornful frowns in the direction of Todd Black, whose sports bar, the Man Cave, camped at the edge of town—rather like the embarrassing relative everyone at the family picnic wishes would just go away. His concession to the requisite Bavarian look they were going for had been to add the carved wooden overhang to his roofline and commission one of his buddies to paint a Neanderthal in lederhosen holding a club on the front of the building. Many thought it in poor taste. Rather like the brawls that often took place there on a Saturday night.

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